Steiner Turf Equipment, Inc.

Gebr. Hendriks Vof Research

Mathias M Hendriks

Wilhelmus J Hendriks

Emanuel A Hendriks

Johannes G Hendriks

David Sean Johnsen

Gerald L Douglas

Frank R Pohlman, Jr

Thomas E Noyes, Ii

Johnannes G Hendriks

A numerically-controlled robotic manipulator arm mounted to a sod harvester comprises two segments pivotally coupled together. One segment is rotatably coupled to a fixed base on the harvester while the second segment carries a pick-up head which can turn with respect to the segment. The pick-up head is capable of picking up, holding, and releasing sod rolls. The arm is programmable so that a variety of configurations of stacked sod rolls can be achieved.

Robotic sod stacker

A sod roller for automatically controlling the angular position of the end or flap of a roll of sod about the roll. A device senses the end, or trailing edge, of a strip of sod as a roll is formed on a roll-up conveyor. The sod roller holds the roll in the roll-up conveyor as it continues to roll and ejects the roll from the roll-up conveyor in a manner responsive to the position of the trailing edge of the strip of sod.

Automatic control of sod roll flaps

The invention relates to a method for transporting a stack of rolled-up turf sods, whereby the rolled-up sods are stacked on top of one another in several layers. Each layer comprises a few rows of rolled-up sods, located side by side, whereby each row consists of a few rolled-up sods, being in line, and the longitudinal axes of the rolled-up sods in the one layer extend transversely to the longitudinal axes of the rolled-up sods in a layer located under and/or above said layer. The stack of rolled-up sods, in order to be transported, is carried by a fork having a number of teeth, whereby the rolled-up sods of the lowermost layer are directly supported by the teeth extending parallel to the longitudinal axes of the rolled-up sods of the lowermost layer, such that each rolled-up sod of the lowermost layer is supported by two teeth located side by side.

Method for transporting a stack of turf sods

Growing community of inventors

Baernex, Netherlands

Mathias M Hendriks