Agricultural Path Correction for Crop Swath Irregularities
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing agricultural systems fail to account for irregularities in material profiles such as crop swath profiles, leading to inefficient operation and potential loss of material during harvesting or processing.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that utilizes sensor data to identify material profile irregularities, determines correcting path segments, and controls the agricultural system's movement to adapt to these irregularities, employing various path planning procedures based on available global paths, system location, and environmental data.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a predetermined global path is used for guiding the agricultural system, then the operation follows a fixed plan, but it cannot adapt to material profile irregularities resulting in incomplete harvesting
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary sensing of the material profile ahead of the agricultural system's current position. By detecting irregularities in advance and pre-calculating correcting path segments, the system prepares adaptive guidance information before reaching the irregularity, enabling smooth transitions without real-time computational delays.
Solution Approach 2:
The path guidance system dynamically adjusts between following the predetermined global path and deviating to correcting path segments based on detected material irregularities. The system continuously updates the guidance path by combining the global path with locally generated correcting segments, creating a dynamic hybrid navigation approach that adapts to changing conditions.
2Productivity
If the agricultural system follows a fixed global path, then navigation is simple, but material collection is incomplete due to irregularities in material distribution
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary sensing of the material profile ahead of the agricultural system's current position. By detecting irregularities in advance and pre-calculating correcting path segments, the system prepares adaptive guidance information before reaching the irregularity, enabling smooth transitions without real-time computational delays.
Solution Approach 2:
When material irregularities are detected, the system rapidly generates correcting path segments to bypass the irregularity and resume following the global path. This allows the system to quickly adapt to deviations without prolonged computational processing, maintaining operational efficiency while ensuring complete material collection.
3Productivity
If the system continuously adjusts the path to follow material profile irregularities, then harvesting completeness improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local corrections only to specific path segments where material irregularities are detected, rather than continuously adjusting the entire path. By generating correcting path segments only for affected areas and combining them with the predetermined global path, the system maintains simplicity in unaffected regions while achieving adaptability where needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The guidance path is segmented into global path segments and local correcting path segments. The global path provides the overall navigation framework, while correcting segments are generated only for specific areas with material irregularities. This segmentation allows the system to maintain a simple predetermined path structure while adding adaptability only where necessary.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for guiding movement of an agricultural system within a field including sensor data indicative of an environment of the agricultural system used to identify a material profile along which the agricultural system shall be guided, one or more properties of the material profile determined from the sensor data and in particular properties indicative of an irregularity in the material profile, determination of a correcting path segment for guiding movement of the agricultural system with respect to the material profile irregularity, and movement of the agricultural system controlled along the determined correcting path segment.