Method for controlling a vehicle for harvesting agricultural material

A method for controlling a vehicle for performing an agricultural task on an agricultural material in a field or at a worksite, the method comprising:

• collecting a stereo vision data to determine a crop three-dimensional representation or upper point cloud of an upper portion of a crop canopy in a front region in front of the vehicle;
• estimating an observed ground elevation data based on a current observed position data of a location-determining receiver, the current observed position data comprising an altitude data and an attitude data of the ground associated with the front region;
• accessing a stored ground elevation data based on a prior position data that aligns with the current observed position data, the prior position data comprising the altitude data and the attitude data of the ground;
• determining an average or weighted average of the observed ground elevation data and the stored ground elevation data for the aligned prior position data and the current observed position data;
• estimating a ground three-dimensional representation or lower point cloud of the ground based on the determined average;
• transforming or aligning the collected stereo vision data to a common coordinate system of the estimated lower point cloud of the ground;
• determining differences between the upper point cloud of the crop canopy and a lower point cloud of the ground, where each difference is associated with a cell within a grid defined by the front region;
• providing the differences to a data processing system to estimate a yield or differential yield for the front region;
• and
• adjusting a ground speed or a ground velocity of the vehicle when the yield or differential yield in one or more cells satisfies a threshold, or exceeds a lower yield limit, or is less than an upper yield limit.