Harvesting machine with visualization system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11042280-B2
Application number	US-201916978687-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 4, 2019
Priority date	Mar 5, 2018
Publication date	Jun 22, 2021
Grant date	Jun 22, 2021

Abstract

A graphical user interface (60) for a combine harvester (10) includes, in a first portion (62) of the user interface, a graphical representation (66, 70) of an amount of material passing through a threshing system (22) at multiple positions along a longitudinal direction of the combine harvester, and a graphical representation (68, 72) of an amount of material passing through a cleaning system (42) at multiple positions along the longitudinal direction of the combine harvester. The user interface further includes, in a second portion (64) of the user interface, a graphical representation (74, 78) of an amount of material passing through the threshing system (22) at a plurality of locations along a lateral axis of the combine harvester, and a graphical representation (76, 80) of an amount of material passing through the cleaning system (42) at a plurality of locations along the lateral axis of the combine harvester.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A combine harvester, comprising:
a threshing system for threshing and separating crop material;
a cleaning system for separating grain from chaff, the cleaning system being positioned to collect crop material falling from the threshing system;
a plurality of threshing system sensors for detecting an amount of material passing from the threshing system to the cleaning system, at least two of the threshing system sensors being spaced apart along a longitudinal axis of the combine harvester and at least two of the threshing system sensors being spaced apart along a lateral axis of the combine harvester;
a plurality of cleaning system sensors for detecting an amount of material passing through the cleaning system, at least two of the cleaning system sensors being spaced apart along the longitudinal axis of the combine harvester and at least two of the cleaning system sensors being spaced apart along the lateral axis of the combine harvester;
one or more computing devices configured to—
receive data from the threshing system sensors and from the cleaning system sensors, and
use the data to generate a graphical user interface including—
in a first portion of the user interface, a graphical representation of an amount of material passing through the threshing system at multiple positions along a longitudinal direction of the combine harvester, and a graphical representation of an amount of material passing through the cleaning system at multiple positions along the longitudinal direction of the combine harvester,
in a second portion of the user interface, a graphical representation of an amount of material passing through the threshing system at a plurality of locations along the lateral axis of the combine harvester, and a graphical representation of an amount of material passing through the cleaning system at a plurality of locations along the lateral axis of the combine harvester.

2. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the computing device configured to present the first portion of the user interface and the second portion of the user interface simultaneously and in a manner such that the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the threshing system in the first portion of the user interface is visually aligned with the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the threshing system in the second portion of the user interface, and such that the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the cleaning system in the first portion of the user interface is visually aligned with the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the cleaning system in the second portion of the user interface.

3. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the computing device configured to present information in the second portion of the user interface according to a user-selected position of a visual marker in the first portion of the user interface.

4. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the computing device configured to present a visual marker in the first portion of the graphical user interface, the visual marker indicating a location along the longitudinal direction of the combine harvester corresponding to the information in the second portion of the graphical user interface.

5. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 4 , the computing device further configured to—
in response to an input received from a user, change the location of the visual marker in the first portion of the graphical user interface to a new location, and
in response to the input received from the user, update the information in the second portion of the graphical user interface to correspond to the new location of the visual marker.

6. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the computing device configured to present, as part of the graphical representation of the combine harvester, an animation of the material passing through the threshing system and the material passing through the cleaning system.

7. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the threshing system including a plurality of rotors oriented parallel with the longitudinal axis of the combine harvester.

8. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 7 , the threshing system including a plurality of concaves, each concave being associated with one of the rotors, the threshing system sensors being placed beneath the concaves.

9. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the cleaning system including a stratification pan, a sieve and a chaffer, the cleaning system sensors being located beneath the stratification pan and above the chaffer and the sieve.

10. The combine harvester as set forth in claim 1 , the one or more computing devices further configured to generate the graphical user interface such that—
the first portion of the graphical user interface includes a graphical representation of a portion of the combine harvester and illustrates, as part of the graphical representation of the portion of the combine harvester, the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the threshing system and the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the cleaning system, and
the second portion of the graphical user interface includes a graphical representation of a portion of the combine harvester and illustrates, as part of the graphical representation of the portion of the combine harvester, the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the threshing system and the graphical representation of the amount of material passing through the cleaning system.

Assignees

• Agco Corp

Inventors

• Koch Jared
• Leininger Jay
• Johnson Gerald R

Classifications

• A01F12/26

  Multi-part threshing concaves · CPC title

• A01D41/1276 Primary

  for cleaning mechanisms · CPC title

• G06F3/04847 Primary

  Interaction techniques to control parameter settings, e.g. interaction with sliders or dials · CPC title

• A01D41/1272

  for measuring grain flow · CPC title

• A01D75/18

  Safety devices for parts of the machines · CPC title