Agricultural Baler Wrap Completion Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional agricultural balers often fail to accurately determine if a bale is properly wrapped, leading to unwrapped bales being released and requiring re-baling, due to issues like wrapping material being misapplied or wrapped around baler components.
Innovation Solution
A controller system with bale size and pressure sensors that monitors the bale's diameter and density changes during the wrapping cycle, outputting a successful wrap signal when the bale's size decreases by a defined amount, and a warning signal if the bale remains unwrapped, ensuring accurate detection of the wrap cycle completion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If wrapping material is drawn from the material roll during the wrap cycle, then the wrapping process appears to be completed, but the bale may not be properly wrapped if the material is misapplied or wrapped around baler components
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses sensors to continuously monitor bale size and wrapping material consumption during the wrap cycle. The controller receives feedback from these sensors and compares the actual bale size change against expected values to determine whether proper wrapping occurred, allowing for real-time detection of wrapping failures
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces purely mechanical wrapping completion detection with an electronic sensing and control system. Instead of relying solely on mechanical indicators, the system uses sensors to detect bale size changes and electronically determines whether wrapping was successful, enabling more accurate and reliable detection
2Measurement precision
If the bale size is monitored during wrapping, then accurate detection of wrap completion is achieved, but additional sensors and control systems are required
Solution Approach 1:
The controller serves multiple functions: it manages the wrap cycle operation, processes sensor data from bale size sensors, determines wrap completion status, and controls the tailgate release. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate dedicated systems for each function
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the bale's own size changes as the measurement parameter for detecting wrap completion. Rather than requiring complex external measurement devices, the system monitors the natural dimensional changes of the bale during wrapping, which provides direct and accurate feedback about wrapping success
3Ease of operation
If unwrapped bales are released due to false wrap completion detection, then the wrap detection system is overly sensitive or inaccurate, but re-baling and re-wrapping is required
Solution Approach 1:
The system continuously monitors bale size during the wrap cycle and uses this feedback to verify that wrapping actually occurred. The controller compares measured bale size changes against expected values and only releases the tailgate when proper wrapping is confirmed, preventing false releases
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary verification of wrapping success before allowing bale release. By monitoring bale size changes during the wrap cycle and confirming that the bale has been properly wrapped before triggering the release mechanism, the system prevents unnecessary re-baling operations
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to a wrapping system (200) for an agricultural baler (10) includes: a material roll (213) configured to hold a roll of wrapping material; a duckbill assembly (250) configured to draw wrapping material from the material roll (213) and including a duckbill motor (252); and a bale size sensor (110) configured to output bale size signals (610). A controller (510) is operatively coupled to the duckbill motor (252) and the bale size sensor (110). The controller (510) is configured to determine a starting size of a bale based on at least one received bale size signal, output an initiation signal (604) to initiate a wrap cycle, determine if the current size of the bale is less than the starting size of the bale by a defined amount after the initiation (604) and output a successful wrap signal responsively to determining that the above condition is met.