Device for guiding the displacement of a vehicle and in particular an agricultural machine
First Claim
1. A device for guiding the displacement of a vehicle, having ground-contacting wheels, and in particular an agricultural machine, said device being more particularly adapted to enable the vehicle to effect different parallel passages over an area and comprising a support, a system for automatically maintaining said support in a horizontal position on a fixed part of the vehicle, a magnetized element acting as a compass and movably mounted on said support, means defining at least one planar light beam reflecting face on said magnetized element, means combined with said magnetized element for angularly orienting said magnetized element, an optical system mounted on said support for locating the position of said reflecting face, an automatic piloting device comprising a system mounted on said support for detecting the intensity of the beam reflected by said reflecting face, means for steering the steering wheels of the vehicle and a servo-control device connecting said intensity detecting system to said wheel steering means, said detecting system detecting the magnitude and direction of the lateral deflection of the beam reflected by said reflecting face and comprising two mirrors disposed at 90°
- to each other and constituting a vertical dihedral structure which defines a vertical flat surface at the dihedral angle between said two mirrors and having a width which is equal to the width of the image of said reflecting face projected by said optical system, the bisector plane of said dihedral angle coinciding with the plane of the optical axis of the incident beam impinging on said reflecting face and the optical axis of the beam reflected by said reflecting face, and two luminous flux responsive means respectively disposed laterally on both sides of said two mirrors and connected to said servo-control device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The device comprises in a preferred embodiment, on one hand, an orienting system comprising a compass provided with two reflecting faces angularly offset 180°, an orientable optical system for detecting the angular deviation of the reflecting faces relative to a reference direction and means for displaying the detected deviation and, on the other hand, an automatic piloting system comprising a set of mirrors photocells, a servo-control device, and a cylinder device (32) for steering the steering wheels (33) of the vehicle.
Application in particular to agricultural machines.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A device for guiding the displacement of a vehicle, having ground-contacting wheels, and in particular an agricultural machine, said device being more particularly adapted to enable the vehicle to effect different parallel passages over an area and comprising a support, a system for automatically maintaining said support in a horizontal position on a fixed part of the vehicle, a magnetized element acting as a compass and movably mounted on said support, means defining at least one planar light beam reflecting face on said magnetized element, means combined with said magnetized element for angularly orienting said magnetized element, an optical system mounted on said support for locating the position of said reflecting face, an automatic piloting device comprising a system mounted on said support for detecting the intensity of the beam reflected by said reflecting face, means for steering the steering wheels of the vehicle and a servo-control device connecting said intensity detecting system to said wheel steering means, said detecting system detecting the magnitude and direction of the lateral deflection of the beam reflected by said reflecting face and comprising two mirrors disposed at 90°
- to each other and constituting a vertical dihedral structure which defines a vertical flat surface at the dihedral angle between said two mirrors and having a width which is equal to the width of the image of said reflecting face projected by said optical system, the bisector plane of said dihedral angle coinciding with the plane of the optical axis of the incident beam impinging on said reflecting face and the optical axis of the beam reflected by said reflecting face, and two luminous flux responsive means respectively disposed laterally on both sides of said two mirrors and connected to said servo-control device.
- View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Specification