Agricultural harvesting machine

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11464166-B2
Application number	US-201916559934-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 4, 2019
Priority date	Sep 17, 2018
Publication date	Oct 11, 2022
Grant date	Oct 11, 2022

Abstract

An agricultural harvesting machine, particularly a combine harvester or a forage harvester, has a supporting frame, a cutting mechanism, an inclined conveyor and a driver's cab. The cutting mechanism is arranged at the supporting frame by the inclined conveyor. The driver's cab is arranged at the supporting frame with the intermediary of at least one damper unit. At least one camera is arranged in an interior of the driver's cab. The camera is oriented to the cutting mechanism and/or to the inclined conveyor through a front windshield of the driver's cab. The camera is arranged in an operative area of a cleaning device of the front windshield so that a detection area of the camera can be optically acquired at least through a portion of the operative area of the cleaning device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An agricultural harvesting machine comprising:
a supporting frame,
a cutting mechanism arranged on the supporting frame via an inclined conveyor,
a driver's cab arranged via at least one damper unit on the supporting frame, and
at least one camera arranged in an interior of the driver's cab, wherein the camera is oriented to the cutting mechanism and/or to the inclined conveyor through a front windshield of the driver's cab,
wherein the camera is arranged in an operative area of a cleaning device of the front windshield so that a detection area of the camera can be optically acquired at least through a portion of the operative area of the cleaning device.

2. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the cleaning device is formed by a windshield wiper that is configured to at least partially sweep over the front windshield while carrying out a circular movement and/or a linear movement.

3. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the detection area contains at least a portion of the cutting mechanism and/or of the inclined conveyor.

4. The harvesting machine according to claim 3 , wherein the detection area contains a front area located in front of the cutting mechanism in a driving direction of the harvesting machine and/or a rear area located behind the cutting mechanism in the driving direction of the harvesting machine.

5. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one camera is constructed as an RGB camera or a stereo camera.

6. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the at least one camera comprises a plurality of cameras each directed to different detection areas, wherein the detection areas each contain at least a portion of the cutting mechanism and/or at least a portion of the inclined conveyor.

7. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the camera is arranged in an upper area of the driver's cab at an interior roof thereof.

8. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , further comprising a camera housing that spatially encloses the camera, wherein the camera housing is connected to an interior roof of the driver's cab in a force-transmitting manner.

9. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the driver's cab has at an upper front edge at least one sun shield that is configured for at least partially shading the camera.

10. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , wherein the camera is mounted so as to be rotatable relative to the driver's cab such that the camera has at least one rotational degree of freedom.

11. The harvesting machine according to claim 1 , further comprising at least one evaluating unit that is connected to the camera by a data link so that images captured by the camera can be transferred to the evaluating unit and processed by the evaluating unit.

Assignees

• Claas Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen Gmbh

Inventors

• Neitemeier Dennis
• Barther Marvin
• Fischer Frédéric
• Kettelhoit Boris

Classifications

• B60S1/0452

  Position of the wipers relative to the vehicle · CPC title

• B60R11/04

  Mounting of cameras operative during drive; Arrangement of controls thereof relative to the vehicle · CPC title

• A01D41/127 Primary

  Control or measuring arrangements specially adapted for combines · CPC title

• A01D41/1271 Primary

  for measuring crop flow · CPC title

• B60S1/28

  characterised by a plurality of wipers (B60S1/06 takes precedence) · CPC title