Grain quality sensor

A grain quality system for a harvesting machine having a flow path for harvested grain material, which system comprises:

• a computer associated with said harvesting machine and including a processor, an input, and an output;
• said grain material flow path including a grain conveyor located internally within said harvesting machine;
• an illumination source configured for placement within said harvesting machine adjacent to said grain material flow path and configured for illuminating grain material in said flow path;
• an optical data capture sensor mounted within said harvesting machine and including a photosite array configured to be oriented towards said grain flow path and an electronics module connected to said photosite array;
• wherein said electronics module is configured for providing an output to said computer input representing a visual characteristic of grain material in said flow path;
• and
• wherein said processor is configured for providing an output representing characteristics of said grain material in said flow path.

A method of determining grain quality using a grain quality sensor including a photosite array;

• an illumination source configured for directing light onto a crop sample;
• a filter configured for placement between the crop sample and the photosite array;
• and an electronics module electrically connected to the photosite array, the method comprising the steps of:
• said illumination source directing light onto said crop sample;
• said filter limiting passage of light into different parts of said photosite array such that certain locations only receive certain wavelengths of light from said crop sample;
• said electronics module receiving crop sample optical data from said photosite array;
• said electronics module splitting said optical data into subsets;
• said electronics module transforming said optical data into a color space;
• said electronics module determining distributions of light pixels in each subset in each dimension of said color space;
• said electronics module ranking said subsets from the narrowest distribution of light pixels to the widest distribution of light pixels;
• and
• said electronics module using said ranked distributions to distinguish between characteristics of said crop sample.