Forage harvester

US12185669B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Christoph Heitmann · Warendorf, DE
• Sven Carsten Belau · Vellmar, DE
• Ingo Bönig · Gütersloh, DE
• Frédéric Fischer · Arnsberg, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 18, 2021
• Grant date: Jan 7, 2025
• Expiry date: Aug 11, 2043

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G01N21/85
• WIPO field: Measurement
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A forage harvester. The forage harvester has a work assembly for harvesting a crop and for processing harvested material of the crop, which includes grain components and non-grain components. In operation, the harvested material is transported in a harvested material flow along a harvested material transport path through the harvesting machine. The forage harvester also has a control assembly that includes an optical measuring system arranged on the harvested material transport path. The optical measuring system has a camera for recording image data of the harvested material of the harvested material flow. The control assembly, using an image recognition routine, determines image regions assigned to a non-grain component in the image data, determines geometric properties of the assigned non-grain components based on the image regions, and determines an indicator of a structural percentage of the harvested material from the geometric properties.