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US 9,936,637 B2Granted
Combine harvester combining row crop guidance and plant attribute measurement
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsNoel W. Anderson, Niels Dybro
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for measuring plant attributes includes an ECU mounted on a combine, a plant attribute sensor, a ground speed sensor and a vehicle guidance sensor. The ECU is configured to use a signal from a vehicle guidance sensor disposed in front of plant attribute sensor to create a signal sampling window in which signals from the plant attribute sensor will be read and to reject signals from the plant attribute sensors outside of this signal sampling window.
Claims20
A system for measuring plant attributes comprising:
- a combine harvester;
- an electronic control unit (ECU) mounted on the combine harvester;
- a vehicle guidance sensor disposed on a row crop harvesting head of the combine harvester and coupled to the ECU to sense a position of the row crop harvesting head with respect to at least one row of crops being harvested and to provide a guidance signal to the ECU indicative of this position;
- a plant attribute sensor disposed on the row crop harvesting head of the combine harvester and coupled to the ECU to sense an attribute of a plant of the crops being harvested and to provide a crop plant signal to the ECU indicative of this attribute;
- and
- a vehicle speed sensor coupled to the ECU and configured to provide a ground speed signal to the ECU indicative of the ground speed of the row crop harvesting head;
- wherein the ECU is configured (1) to receive the guidance signal and the crop signal and the ground speed signal, (2) to calculate a signal sampling window in time, in which to accept a plant datum from the plant attribute sensor, and (3) to ignore plant signals received outside that signal sampling window.
4 more elements
A plant attribute sensing system for use with a combine harvester, the sensing system comprising:
- a row crop harvesting head;
- a first sensor to sense a crop plant prior to separation of the crop plant from soil;
- a second sensor to sense an attribute of the crop plant;
- an electronic control unit (ECU) configured to calculate a signal sampling window for accepting signals from the second sensor based upon signals from the first sensor and a speed of the combine harvester, wherein the ECU is configured to ignore signals from the second sensor outside the calculated signal sampling window.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.