Grain quality sensor

• US 9,756,785 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2015
• Issued: 09/12/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intelligent Agricultural Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Appareo Systems LLC (AGCO Corporation)
• Inventors: Butts, Nicholas L., Bremer, Marshall T., Tolstedt, Jonathan L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lu, Tom Y
• Application Number:
  US14/853,971
• Publication Number:
  US 20160078611A1
• Time in Patent Office: 729 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/127 Control or measuring arrangements specially adapted for combines
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1271 for measuring crop flow
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1272 for measuring grain flow
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1273 for measuring grain loss
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1274 for drives
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1276 for cleaning mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1277 for measuring grain quality
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 57/12 Rotating rakes
• CPC Class Codes: B65G 43/08 Control devices operated by article or material being fed, conveyed or discharged and controlling the discharging devices B65G47/42
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 7/14 for measuring distance or clearance between spaced objects or spaced apertures G01B7/30 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G01G 19/08 for incorporation in vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G01G 19/12 having electrical weight-sensitive devices
• CPC Class Codes: G01L 1/00 Measuring force or stress, in general measuring force due to impact G01L5/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01N 33/0098 Plants or trees wood G01N33/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/865 Combination of radar systems with lidar systems
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/867 Combination of radar systems with cameras
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/87 Combinations of radar systems, e.g. primary radar and secondary radar
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 13/88 Radar or analogous systems specially adapted for specific applications electromagnetic prospecting or detecting of objects, e.g. near-field detection, G01V3/00
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/04 Systems determining the presence of a target
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/88 Lidar systems specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 17/89 : for mapping or imaging
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/411 : Identification of targets based on measurements of radar reflectivity G01S7/415 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10004 : Still image; Photographic image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 : Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30128 : Food products
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0004 : Industrial image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 : Region-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/136 : involving thresholding
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/56 : exterior to a vehicle by using sensors mounted on the vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/68 : Food, e.g. fruit or vegetables
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/56 : provided with illuminating means
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/80 : Camera processing pipelines; Components thereof

Abstract

A grain quality sensor comprising a lens, a filter, a photosite array, an illumination source, and an electronics module, wherein the illumination source directs light containing a known set of wavelengths onto a crop sample, wherein the lens picks up light reflected by the crop sample and directs it into the filter, which allows light to pass into different parts of the photosite array such that certain locations on the photosite array only get certain frequencies of the reflected light, wherein the electronics module is electrically connected to the photosite array and capable of determining which parts of the photosite array received light and what frequency the light received was, wherein the electronics module can analyze the optical data received by the photosite array, and wherein the analysis of the optical data is used to determine the composition of different parts of the crop sample.

Claims

1. A grain quality sensor comprising:

a lens;

a filter;

a photosite array;

at least one illumination source;

an electronics module;

wherein the filter is placed between the lens and the photosite array;

wherein the illumination source directs light containing a known set of wavelengths onto a crop sample;

wherein the lens picks up light reflected by the crop sample and directs it into the filter;

wherein the filter allows light to pass into different parts of the photosite array such that certain locations on the photosite array only get certain wavelengths of the reflected light;

wherein the electronics module is electrically connected to the photosite array and capable of determining which parts of the photosite array received light and at what wavelength the light received was;

wherein the electronics module is configured to analyze the optical data received by the photosite array;

wherein the analysis of the optical data is used to determine the composition of different parts of the crop sample; and

wherein the analysis of the optical data comprises the steps of;

dividing the elements of the photosite array into subsets;

determining the spread of each subset in a colorspace;

selecting a representative number of subsets with the smallest spreads and plotting the spread of the representative number of subsets;

plotting the spread of the total number of subsets on the same plot as the representative number of subsets; and

comparing an area of the plot of the total number of subsets to an area of the plot of the representative number of subsets in order to derive information on the content of the crop sample.

2. The grain quality sensor of claim 1, wherein the step of determining the spread of each subset comprises finding the standard deviation of each subset.

3. The grain quality sensor of claim 1, wherein the analysis of the optical data further comprises the step of performing a demosaicing process on the optical data captured in the photosite array before the analysis of the optical data is performed.

4. The grain quality sensor of claim 1, wherein the information on the content of the crop sample comprises approximate values for the percentage of damaged crop in the crop sample and for the percentage of material other than grain in the crop sample.

5. The grain quality sensor of claim 1, wherein the known set of wavelengths comprises wavelengths of light selected from the group comprising:

red light, green light, ultraviolet light, both red and green light, both green and ultraviolet light, both red and ultraviolet light, and the set of red light, green light, and ultraviolet light.