Projected Crop Guidance Lines for Post-Canopy Field Steering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current agricultural guidance systems fail to provide a unified guidance line across multiple operations, requiring separate sensor suites for each operation, and are unreliable when crops canopy, leading to inefficiencies and increased costs.
Innovation Solution
Integrate GPS, IMU, and vision systems to determine precise crop row locations, calculate and store mathematical offsets, and create a unified guidance system that transforms sensor data from early-season operations into persistent navigational guidance for later operations, reducing the need for multiple sensor suites.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If separate sensor suites are used for each agricultural operation, then each operation can have its own optimized steering system, but the overall system complexity and cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal guidance line generation system that can be used across multiple agricultural operations (planting, cultivating, spraying, harvesting) without requiring operation-specific sensor suites. The same sensor suite mounted on the planter generates guidance lines that serve all subsequent operations, making the system multi-functional and eliminating the need for separate sensor systems for each operation.
2Extent of automation
If vision systems are used for autonomous steering, then steering can be automated between crop rows, but the system fails once the crop has canopied and the ground is no longer visible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent generates guidance lines during early-season operations (planting or pre-canopy cultivating) when the ground is still visible and crop rows are distinguishable. These pre-generated guidance lines are then stored and used for subsequent operations after canopy closure, eliminating the need for real-time vision systems during later operations when ground visibility is lost.
3Loss of information
If the planter's position is recorded as a guidance line, then follow-up operations can use that guidance line for steering, but the planter's path may deviate from the intended route due to vehicle dynamics and slope effects
Solution Approach 1:
The patent incorporates real-time sensor data (GPS position, IMU orientation, wheel slip, slope measurements) during planter operation to continuously update and correct the recorded guidance line. This feedback mechanism compensates for deviations caused by vehicle dynamics and gravitational effects, ensuring the final guidance line accurately represents the actual crop row positions rather than the intended theoretical path.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems for generating agricultural guidance data provide for determining a position and orientation of an agricultural vehicle in a field using at least one positioning sensor. Locations of crop rows in the field relative to the agricultural vehicle are determined using at least one crop detection sensor. Navigation space coordinates of points associated with the crop rows are calculated by combining the position and orientation of the agricultural vehicle with the locations associated with the crop rows in the field relative to the agricultural vehicle. Guidance data is generated based on the calculated navigation space coordinates and stored for use in a subsequent agricultural operation.