Residue monitoring
AssigneeWisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
InventorsKevin Shinners, Cyrus Nigon
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A residue management system or method can be implemented for an agricultural harvester that includes a residue processing system. A sensor arrangement can be in communication with one or more components of the residue processing system. The sensor arrangement can be configured to measure indicators of a mass flow rate of the crop residue through the crop residue system across a width of a stream of the crop residue.
Claims20
A residue management system for an agricultural harvester, the agricultural harvester including a chopper with a knife assembly for reducing size of crop residue, the residue management system comprising:
- a sensor arrangement in communication with one or more components of the chopper, the sensor arrangement including a plurality of sensors arranged on a stationary knife assembly of the knife assembly of the chopper to measure indicators of a mass flow rate of the crop residue through the chopper across a width of a stream of the crop residue, based on measuring forces of the crop residue on the stationary knife assembly.
An agricultural harvester comprising:
- a header configured to harvest crop material;
- a residue processing system to process crop residue that is separated from the harvested crop material;
- and
- a residue management system that includes a sensor arrangement in communication with one or more components of the residue processing system,
- the sensor arrangement being configured to measure indicators of a mass flow rate of the crop residue through the residue processing system,
- the sensor arrangement including a plurality of sensors distributed across a width of the residue processing system to measure impact forces of the crop residue, on a plurality of impact plates that extend at least partly into a flow path of the crop residue, as indicators of the mass flow rate at different locations across the width of the residue processing system, and
- the plurality of sensors including a plurality of impact sensors configured as a plurality of load cells connected with the plurality of impact plates by rigid force-transmitting pins to measure the impact forces.
A method of managing crop residue for an agricultural harvester using one or more processor devices, the agricultural harvester including a chopper with a knife assembly for reducing size of the crop residue, and a sensor arrangement in communication with the chopper, the method comprising:
- measuring, using the sensor arrangement, indicators of a mass flow rate of the crop residue through the chopper;
- determining, using the one or more processor devices, based upon the indicators of the mass flow rate, one or more of:
- a distribution of the crop residue within the chopper;
- or
- a total mass flow rate of the crop residue through the chopper,
- wherein the knife assembly of the chopper includes a stationary knife assembly, and the sensor arrangement includes a plurality of sensors arranged on the stationary knife assembly.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.