Tracking improvement for a vision guidance system
AssigneeCase Corporation
InventorsMonte Andre Dickson, Bingcheng Ni, Shufeng Han
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automatic vision guidance system for an agricultural vehicle is disclosed and described. The vision guidance system uses a K-means clustering algorithm in image processing to distinguish between crop and non-crop features. The vision guidance system utilizes moment algorithms to determine the location and orientation of crop rows, from which desired wheel angles are determined and steering is commanded. The vision guidance system may adjust the location and orientation of visually determined crop rows according to a predetermined distance between crop rows. Further, the vision guidance system may utilize a redundant number of regions of interest in determining crop row locations and orientations.
Claims17
An automatic guidance system for an agricultural vehicle, the guidance system comprising:
- an electromagnetic sensor for gathering information about field characteristics, the electromagnetic sensor configured to provide a signal representative of crop rows in an agricultural field, the signal represented as pixels of an image;
- an information processor having a memory and a central processing unit, and the information processor coupled to the electromagnetic sensor;
- and
- a program in the memory of the information processor configured to be executed by the central processing unit, the program configured to divide the image into a first, a second, a third, and a fourth row region of interest, the program configured to determine location and orientation of a row through each region of interest,
- wherein the program is configured to determine whether all the rows are substantially representative of the location and orientation of the crop rows.
An automatic guidance system for an agricultural vehicle, the guidance system comprising:
- an electromagnetic sensor for gathering information about field characteristics, the electromagnetic sensor configured to provide a signal representative of crop rows in an agricultural field, the signal represented as pixels of an image;
- an information processor having a memory and a central processing unit, and the information processor coupled to the electromagnetic sensor;
- and
- a program in the memory of the information processor configured to be executed by the central processing unit, the program configured to divide the image into a first, a second, a third, and a fourth row region of interest, the program configured to determine location and orientation of a row through each region of interest,
- wherein the program is configured to determine whether at least three of the rows are substantially representative of the location and orientation of the crop rows.
A method of sensing crop rows in an agricultural field, comprising:
- sensing electromagnetic radiation with an electromagnetic sensor;
- communicating a digital signal representative of the sensed electromagnetic radiation, and representative of pixels of an image, to a processing device;
- dividing the image into a first, a second, a third, and a fourth region of interest;
- determining location and orientation of a row through each region of interest;
- and
- determining whether all the rows are substantially representative of the location and orientation of the crop rows.
A method of sensing crop rows in an agricultural field, comprising:
- sensing electromagnetic radiation with an electromagnetic sensor;
- communicating a digital signal representative of the sensed electromagnetic radiation, and representative of pixels of an image, to a processing device;
- dividing the image into a first, a second, a third, and a fourth region of interest;
- determining location and orientation of a row through each region of interest;
- and
- determining whether at least three of the rows are substantially representative of the location and orientation of the crop rows.
An agricultural vehicle configured to be guided through a field by an automatic guidance system, the agricultural vehicle comprising:
- a visual means for gathering visual input about crop rows in an agricultural field in the format of a digitized image, including pixel information;
- and
- a processing means for dividing the image into a first, a second, a third, and a fourth region of interest, for determining the location and orientation of a row through each region of interest,
- wherein the processing means is configured to determine whether all the rows are substantially representative of location and orientation of the crop rows.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.