Deere + Company

Justin Borgstadt

Tarik Loukili

Travis J Davis

Shayne C Rich

Michio Kise

Sara Meghan Beery

Bradley J Hitchler

Bradley W Van De Woestyne

Oosman Saeed

Anil Kumar Telikicherla

Sara Beery

Shayne Rich

A mobile agricultural machine includes a row unit having a furrow opener mounted to the row unit and configured to engage a surface of ground over which the mobile agricultural machine travels to open a furrow in the ground. A furrow closer is mounted to the row unit behind the furrow opener relative to a direction of travel of the mobile agricultural machine and is configured to engage the surface of the ground to close the furrow. An image sensor system is mounted to the row unit and configured to sense characteristics of residue and seeds in the furrow opened by the furrow opener and generate a sensor signal indicative of the characteristics. The mobile agricultural machine can further include a control system configured to generate a residue/seed characteristic indicator corresponding to the sensed characteristics and to generate an action signal to control an action of the mobile agricultural machine based on the residue/seed characteristic indicator.

Implement mounted sensors sensing seed and residue characteristics and control

An agricultural harvester includes a plurality of controllable subsystems and a forward-looking crop sensor that detects a characteristic of the crop in front of the harvester. The forward-looking sensor generates a first sensor signal indicative of the detected characteristic. The harvester further includes a component sensor that detects a characteristic of a component of the agricultural harvesting machine and generates a second sensor signal indicative of the detected characteristic. Adaptation logic receives the first and second sensor signals and determines a sensor conversion factor intermittently during operation of the agricultural harvester. Recommendation logic receives the conversion factor and generates a recommendation to change operation of a controllable subsystem, based in part on the calculated conversion factor and a value received from the forward-looking crop sensor. A control system controls the controllable subsystem based on the generated recommendation.

Adaptive forward-looking biomass conversion and machine control during crop harvesting operations

A pose detection sensor, of a mobile agricultural machine, generates, for various points along a route traveled by the mobile machine, signals indicative of a pose of the pose detection sensor. A point cloud is identified, based on the signals generated by the pose detection sensor, the point cloud including a set of points that are estimated to correspond to a surface of the ground over which the mobile machine travels. Elevation values are generated for each point in the point cloud. In some examples, a plane is calculated based on the points in the point cloud, the plane including predictive elevation values of the ground surface ahead of the mobile machine.

Machine control through active ground terrain mapping

Methods and apparatus to track a blade are disclosed. A disclosed example apparatus includes a blade that is pivotable, first and second optical targets operatively coupled to the blade, and a first camera for collecting first imaging data of the first optical target within a first field of view. The example apparatus also includes a second camera for collecting second imaging data of the second optical target within a second field of view. The example apparatus also includes a selector to select at least one of the first or second imaging data, and a processor to determine an orientation of the blade based on the selected imaging data.

Methods and apparatus to track a blade

An elevation map generator in a mobile agricultural machine generates an elevation map by estimating an elevation value for points in front of a work machine based on a plane derived from a measured elevation point measured by a pose detection system affixed to the work machine. Each elevation value has a corresponding confidence value that varies inversely with a distance of the point from the pose detection system. As the machine moves, additional elevation values are aggregated for each point, based on the confidence values. The machine is controlled based on the aggregated evaluation values.

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West Des Moines, IA, United States of America

Justin Borgstadt