Means for controlling a driven soil working machine on the basis of information derived from a map

Abstract

A method and apparatus for obtaining optimal cultivation of a parcel of land. A soil working machine with drivable working members, such as a rotary harrow, is provided with soil working members which rotate about approximately vertically orientated axes, and cooperates with a geographic positioning system such as DGPS, GPS, Lorean or a dead reckoning system to determine on a continual basis the actual position of the soil working machine on a parcel of land. Simultaneously, the condition or the composition or both of the underlying soil is determined and data of same is transmitted to a processing unit which maps the parcel of land into subareas wherein the states of the soil are the same. A control unit applies this mapping for controlling the soil working members during the soil working machine's operations so that each subarea of the same soil state is optimally cultivated. Variations in the cultivation are obtained by controlling the soil working members' rpm's or their working depths or both and also, optionally independently or in combination with other variations, controlling the soil working machine's speed as it transverses different subareas to optimize cultivation in each subarea. These variations in cultivation can occur during the mapping process or subsequently the mapping can be used for further cultivation operations of the same parcel of land.