Forestry Boom Control With Conditional Auto-Timed Felling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Operators face challenges in controlling tree-processing devices and booms during tree felling due to poor visibility, leading to potential damage to the machine, tree, or both, and inefficiencies in work timing, particularly when moving the harvester head at inappropriate speeds or waiting excessively between movements.
Innovation Solution
A semi-automatic control method where pre-recorded functions for the booms and tree-processing device are defined and initiated based on operator inputs and conditional criteria, allowing automated operation while ensuring operator supervision to prevent damage, reducing the need for extensive sensoring and maintaining machine simplicity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the operator manually controls the tree-processing device and booms simultaneously, then the operator can respond to visual conditions, but the operator cannot see the harvester head clearly and may time movements incorrectly causing damage
Solution Approach 1:
The control system is segmented into two independent control channels: a manual control channel for emergency override and an automatic control channel for routine operations. This allows the operator to disengage from precise timing operations while maintaining ultimate control authority, resolving the contradiction between safety and operational capability.
Solution Approach 2:
An automatic control unit acts as an intermediary between the operator's intent and the actual machine movements. The unit receives high-level commands from the operator and automatically executes the complex sequencing of boom and harvester head movements, eliminating the operator's need to visually track and manually time each movement while maintaining safety through override capability.
2Reliability
If the operator waits to ensure safety before moving booms, then damage is avoided, but work efficiency decreases due to unnecessary waiting
Solution Approach 1:
The automatic control unit continuously monitors the operational state of the harvester head and booms, using sensor feedback to determine when it is safe to execute movements. This automated feedback loop replaces the operator's conservative waiting behavior with precise, real-time safety assessment, allowing movements to proceed immediately when safe rather than waiting for uncertain visual confirmation.
Solution Approach 2:
The control system performs self-assessment of safety conditions through automated sensors and state monitoring. The system independently determines when movements are safe without requiring the operator to visually verify conditions, enabling continuous efficient operation while maintaining safety through automated self-monitoring.
3Measurement precision
If full automation is implemented to eliminate operator visibility problems, then control precision improves, but the system becomes complex with extensive sensoring increasing cost and failure points
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of implementing complete automation with comprehensive sensing of all machine parameters, the system applies partial automation only to the critical sequencing functions where automatic control provides value. The automatic control unit manages boom and harvester head coordination while relying on basic sensor feedback, avoiding the complexity of full system automation while achieving sufficient control precision for safety-critical operations.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a method for controlling the functions of set of booms or of a tree-processing device attached to it, in connection with the event of felling a tree, in which method the attitude or state, relative to at least one degree of freedom, of the set of booms (12) is determined and/or estimated, the momentary operating state of the tree- processing device (14) is determined, the tree-processing device (14) is controlled and the set of booms (12) is controlled, in which method either the set of booms (12) or the tree-processing device (14) is an operating unit and the other is correspondingly a control unit, in which method at least one pre-recorded function of the operating unit is defined in the memory (32) and, in connection with the felling event of the tree (16) : - the pre-recorded function of the operating unit is selected on the basis of the first input (36) created by the operator, - a second input (38) is formed, which contains a conditional criterion for the initiation of the selected pre-recorded function of the operating unit, - the selected pre-recorded function is initiated when the criterion of the input (38) is met, and - the selected pre-recorded function of the operating unit initiated by the second input (38) is performed. The invention also relates to an arrangement and a forestry machine.