Control Arrangement for a Combine Harvester
AssigneeAGCO Corporation
InventorSteve John Schrag
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A mechanism for controlling crop processing arrangements of a combine harvester. One or more flow rate measures are produced for a crop processing arrangement, which are processed to identify whether the flow rate of crop through the crop processing arrangement has been affected. If the flow rate has been affected, any upstream crop processing arrangements are slowed or stopped and any downstream crop processing arrangements are slowed or maintained (without reducing to zero).
Claims15
A control system for a combine harvester comprising a plurality of crop processing arrangements configured to sequentially process crop to define a crop flow through the combine harvester, the control system being configured to, for each crop processing arrangement in a subset of the plurality of crop processing arrangements:
- receive at least one flow rate measure responsive to a maximum flow rate of crop through the crop processing arrangement for current operating parameters of the crop processing arrangement;
- predict whether or not the crop processing arrangement is a flow-affected crop processing arrangement, being a crop processing arrangement in which the maximum flow rate of crop therethrough has reduced or has become negligible, by processing the at least one flow rate measure;
- and
- responsive to predicting that the crop processing arrangement is a flow-affected crop processing arrangement:
- reduce a maximum flow rate through each, if any, upstream crop processing arrangement, being any crop processing arrangement that is upstream, with respect to the crop flow, of the flow-affected crop processing arrangement;
- and
- control a maximum flow rate through each, if any, downstream crop processing arrangement to be greater than the maximum flow rate through each, if any, upstream crop processing arrangement, wherein each downstream crop processing arrangement is any crop processing arrangement that is downstream, with respect to the crop flow, of the flow-affected crop processing arrangement.
A computer-implemented method for a combine harvester comprising a plurality of crop processing arrangements configured to sequentially process crop to define a crop flow through the combine harvester, the computer-implemented method comprising, for each crop processing arrangement in a subset of the plurality of crop processing arrangements:
- receiving at least one flow rate measure responsive to a maximum flow rate of crop through the crop processing arrangement for current operating parameters of the crop processing arrangement;
- predicting whether or not the crop processing arrangement is a flow-affected crop processing arrangement, being a crop processing arrangement in which the maximum flow rate of crop therethrough has reduced or has become negligible, by processing the at least one flow rate measure;
- and
- responsive to predicting that the crop processing arrangement is a flow-affected crop processing arrangement:
- reducing a maximum flow rate through each, if any, upstream crop processing arrangement, being any crop processing arrangement that is upstream, with respect to the crop flow, of the flow-affected crop processing arrangement;
- and
- controlling a maximum flow rate through each, if any, downstream crop processing arrangement to be greater than the maximum flow rate through each, if any, any upstream crop processing arrangement, wherein each downstream crop processing arrangement is any crop processing arrangement that is downstream, with respect to the crop flow, of the flow-affected crop processing arrangement.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.