Device and method for guiding agricultural vehicles using modified swath width

An agricultural vehicle, comprising:

• a chassis;
• at least one farm implement carried by said chassis;
• a memory carried by said chassis, said memory having a base swath path and an original swath width programmed therein;
• a location sensor carried by said chassis and operable to measure a current geographic location;
• and
• an electronic processing circuit (EPC) carried by said chassis and coupled to said memory and said location sensor, said EPC being operable to:
• generate a plurality of swath paths from said base swath path and said original swath width, each of said generated swath paths defining at least two geographic locations;
• determine a difference between said current geographic location and a geographic location of a generated swath path nearest to said current geographic location;
• determine a number of swath paths that said generated swath path nearest to said current geographic location is subsequent to said base swath path;
• divide said difference by said determined number of swath paths to produce a swath width remark distance;
• and
• add said swath width remark distance to said original swath width to produce a modified swath width.

A method for altering a swath pattern of a vehicle, comprising the steps of:

• loading a base swath path and an original swath width into a memory of said vehicle;
• generating a plurality of swath paths from said base swath path and said original swath width, each of said generated swath paths defining at least two geographic locations;
• inputting a swath width remark distance into said memory;
• adding, using an electrical processing circuit (EPC) coupled to said memory, said swath width remark distance to said original swath width to produce a modified swath width;
• re-generating, using said EPC, at least one of said generated swath paths using said modified swath width in place of said original swath width;
• and
• controlling a steering direction of said vehicle based on said at least one re-generated swath path.