Method and system for augmenting a guidance system with a path sensor

• US 8,655,536 B2
• Filed: 11/16/2009
• Issued: 02/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PTx Trimble LLC
• Original Assignee: Trimble Navigation Limited (Trimble Inc.)
• Inventors: Peake, John William, Lange, Arthur F.
• Primary Examiner(s): Algahaim, Helal A
• Application Number:
  US12/590,907
• Publication Number:
  US 20110118926A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,555 Days
• Field of Search: 701/23, 701/25, 701/50, 701/408, 701/411, 701/533
• US Class Current: 701/23
• CPC Class Codes: A01B 69/008 automatic
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/34 Route searching; Route guidance
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0227 using mechanical sensing means, e.g. for sensing treated area
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 1/0278 using satellite positioning signals, e.g. GPS

Abstract

In an automatic vehicle position control system, such as a satellite-based agricultural implement steering system, the satellite-based steering information is adjusted with information obtained from one or more path sensors to facilitate the automatic nudging of the vehicle to take account of inaccurate tracking of the agricultural implement relative to its tractor, terrain variations, and inaccuracies in the satellite-based steering system.

Claims

1. A system for augmenting guidance information from an automatic guidance system in a mobile agricultural machine, comprising:

a position determination guidance sensor mounted on the mobile agricultural machine and configured to provide guidance information for controlling the steering direction of the mobile agricultural machine along a guidance path;

at least one contact-based path sensor mounted on the mobile agricultural machine for physically sensing the relative position of the mobile agricultural machine to at least one path reference point; and

a processor configured to estimate augmented guidance information derived from said at least one path sensor and said position determination guidance sensor.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein said position determination guidance sensor comprises a GNSS receiver.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein said position determination guidance sensor further includes an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

4. The system of claim 2, wherein said GNSS receiver includes at least one of a GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, or Compass.

5. The system of claim 2, wherein said GNSS receiver is configured to operate in conjunction with a Real-Time Kinematic correction system.

6. The system of claim 2, wherein said GNSS receiver is configured to operate in conjunction with a Differential GPS correction system.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein said position determination guidance sensor comprises an inertial measurement unit.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein said at least one contact-based path sensor comprises at least one of a wand sensor and a furrow sensor, the at least one path reference point being a feature that can be physically detected by said at least one contact-based path sensor to define a desired path of the mobile agricultural machine.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising at least one of a video camera, an ultra sonic sensor, an infra-red plant optical sensor, a laser sensor, a camera, and a CCD.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a memory for storing at least one of a positional and a path offset information from at least one contact-based path sensor.

11. A system of claim 10, wherein the memory is connected to the processor and the processor is adapted to receive positional information from the memory to correct positional information received from the position determination guidance sensor with positional information or path offset information from the memory.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein said processor is adapted to project positional information received from said position determination guidance sensor to the physical location of said at least one contact-based path sensor and for combining the positional information received from said position determination guidance sensor with said at least one path offset information to define a guidance path.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the guidance information defines a desired steer path and positional information derived from said at least one contact-based path sensor provides nudging information to the steer path.

14. A method for augmenting guidance information from an automatic guidance system in a mobile agricultural machine, comprising

determining the guidance information of the mobile agricultural machine using a position determination guidance sensor and deriving guidance information therefrom;

obtaining secondary positional information from at least one contact-based path sensor configured to physically detect a path reference point; and

adjusting the guidance information from said position determination guidance sensor using the secondary positional information to define augmented guidance information.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the mobile agricultural machine is guided along substantially adjacent paths defined in a demarcated field and the secondary positional information includes information gathered along the path that is currently being traveled by the mobile agricultural machine.

16. A method of claim 15, wherein the secondary positional information includes information gathered along one or more paths previously traveled by the vehicle.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein said position determination guidance sensor includes a GNSS receiver.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said GNSS receiver includes one or more of a GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, Compass, and Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) receiver.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein said at least one contact-based path sensor comprises at least one of a wand sensor and a furrow sensor.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein said guidance information is derived using RTK techniques.

21. The method of claim 14, wherein said guidance information is derived using DGPS techniques.

22. A method of claim 14, further comprising gathering manual positional adjustment information.

23. A method of claim 22, wherein the adjustment of the position determination guidance sensor positional information includes the manual positional adjustment information gathered during one or more paths previously traveled by the vehicle.

24. The method of claim 14, where the augmented guidance information is calculated using position information from said position determination guidance sensor and relative position information from said at least one contact-based path sensor.