Systems for monitoring seeds and methods thereof
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsNikolai Tevs, Jeffrey S. Puhalla, Elijah B. Garner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
At least one example embodiment discloses a seed monitoring system including a light source configured to emit light in an interior of a seed tube, a plurality of light receivers, each of the plurality of light receivers configured to receive light in at least two sectors of a plurality of sectors of a plane in the interior of the seed tube and generate a sensing signal corresponding to the received light, a processing system including a plurality of conditioning channels, the processing system configured to process the sensing signals to generate conditioned signals and a controller configured to generate a seed count value based on the generated conditioned signals.
Claims19
A seed monitoring system comprising:
- a light source configured to emit light in an interior of a seed tube;
- a plurality of light receivers, each of the plurality of light receivers configured to receive light in at least two sectors of a plurality of sectors of a plane in the interior of the seed tube and generate a sensing signal corresponding to the received light, at least two of the plurality of light receivers opposing each other across the plane and are arranged to receive the received light from the light source, the at least two of the plurality of light receivers being on different walls of the seed tube than the light source;
- a processing system including a plurality of conditioning channels, the processing system configured to process the sensing signals to generate conditioned signals;
- and
- a controller configured to generate a seed count value based on the generated conditioned signals.
A method of monitoring seeds comprising:
- emitting light, by a light source, in an interior of a seed tube;
- receiving light, by a plurality of light receivers, in at least two sectors of a plurality of sectors of a plane in the interior of the seed tube and generating a sensing signal corresponding to the received light, at least one of the plurality of light receivers configured to receive the light in at the least two sectors of a plurality of sectors, the at least one of the plurality of light receivers and another of the plurality of light receivers opposing each other across the plane and are arranged to receive at least a portion of the emitted light, the at least two of the plurality of light receivers being on different walls of the seed tube than the light source;
- processing the sensing signals to generate conditioned signals;
- and
- generating a seed count value based on the generated conditioned signals.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.