Robot tractors
AssigneeDiffracto Ltd.
InventorTimothy R. Pryor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is an electro-optical and microcomputer based method and apparatus for automatically guiding tractors and other farm machinery for the purpose of automatic crop planting, tending and harvesting. A target is preferably located at one boundary of the field which serves as a reference. The position of the machinery in the field is determined by electro-optically sensing the target with a sensor located on the machinery. A desired trajectory for the machinery is then determined and the machinery is steered automatically along this trajectory.
Claims3
A method for determining the distance of a base to, or the parallelism of a base having a direction of movement relative to, a row of objects located along an axis, comprising the steps of:
- projecting light at an oblique angle to the axis from the base located at one side of the axis so as to illuminate a limited plurality of objects in a row;
- imaging the light from the illuminated objects at a location on the base at an oblique angle different from the illuminating oblique angle;
- detecting the imaged light from the illuminated objects;
- generating a signal representative of the frequency of the images produced by said objects;
- and
- analyzing said signal to determine the distance to the row or the parallelism of the base relative to the row.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.