Crop flow monitoring of a crop gathering device

Abstract

An agricultural work machine, such as a self-propelled harvester, is provided. The agricultural work machine includes a crop gathering machine which has a crop cutting device, a crop collecting device and/or a crop feeding device, and at least one crop conveyor, and comprising an image processing system, a data output unit, and at least one sensor system assigned to the crop gathering machine for recording a crop flow in the crop gathering machine. The sensor system is coupled to the image processing system for transferring images. The image processing system processes a selection of available images, such as by pre-processing the images to be transferred in a first step, in a further step determining an optical flow and corresponding vector fields from the pre-processed images, and in a subsequent step deriving and assessing speed trends of the crop flow from the corresponding vector fields.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.