METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE HEIGHT OF THE WINDMILL

Claims

A control system is provided for a combine harvester, which controls the reel position relative to a header and, in particular, a method for controlling the reel height relative to a crop canopy to maintain a preset target reel engagement. With this control system, a reel control system can automatically adjust the reel height relative to the crop canopy and the ground during field crop cutting. The reel control system can automatically adjust the reel height during changes in canopy height by processing instantaneous sensor data, which can be averaged over a period of time. Adjustments can be made periodically.A target reel engagement can be preset to bias the reel height relative to higher or lower canopy ranges by adjusting the target reel engagement aggressiveness (or bias) level to fine-tune reel control performance for lodged crop conditions. Adjusting the aggressiveness can bias a sensor averaging algorithm toward either a shorter crop or a taller crop, depending on the aggressiveness value.