Combine harvesters comprise vehicle guidance systems to guide the vehicle through the field as it harvests crops. Combine harvesters further comprise plant attribute measurement systems.
The accuracy of plant attribute measurement systems of combine harvesters can be improved by employing sensor data from combine harvester vehicle guidance systems.
US 2014/0230396 A1 and US 2014/0230391 A1 disclose crop plant attribute sensing systems using sensors to detect attributes of individual plants. The sensors detect attributes of crop plants passing into a row unit of an agricultural harvesting head. Among the sensors include impact sensors for sensing the impact of ears of corn on stripping plates (also known as a deck plates). These publications are incorporated herein by reference for all that they teach.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/272,910 also discloses a crop plant attribute sensing system using sensors to detect attributes of individual plants. The sensors include a sensor configured to sense the crop stalk thickness or diameter. This application is incorporated herein by reference for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,716,905 B2 discloses a vehicle guidance sensor and vehicle guidance system for a row crop harvesting head (shown as a corn head) that is mounted on a combine harvester. The vehicle guidance sensor includes two feelers that are flexible and are mounted to a forward tip of a crop divider. As the row crop harvesting head is conveyed through a field, rose of crops pass between the tips of adjacent crop dividers. These crop plants deflect the feelers backward (i.e. toward the rear of the row crop harvesting head and away from the direction of travel). The deflection to sense to bind electronic circuit, and is used to steer the combine harvester upon which the row crop harvesting head is mounted. The steering is calculated to sever the row crop harvesting heads such that the rows of crop equidistant between adjacent crop dividers. This patent is incorporated herein by reference for all that it teaches.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,010,261 discloses a plant attribute sensor mounted on the forward ends of two adjacent crop dividers to sense the presence and lateral position of a plant stalk as it passes between the two adjacent crop dividers.
One problem with the sensing arrangements of the systems described above is their susceptibility to noise and interference from other vibrations and other corn plants. In particular, stray vibrations from other portions of the vehicle, the presence of trash plants, sticks, and other material that may be drawn between the stalk rolls can interfere with measurements taken of plant attributes.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved method for determining plant attributes by filtering signals from the plant attribute sensors.
It is also an object of this invention to use a signal from a vehicle guidance sensor disposed in front of plant attribute sensors to create a signal sampling window in which signals from the plant attribute sensors will be read and to reject signals from the plant attribute sensors outside of this signal sampling window.