Combine harvester control and communication system

• US 10,310,455 B2
• Filed: 06/21/2017
• Issued: 06/04/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/19/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Deere & Company
• Original Assignee: Deere & Company
• Inventors: Blank, Sebastian, Donini, Mario L., Pfeiffer, Dohn W., Hoffman, Joshua D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Smith, Isaac G
• Application Number:
  US15/629,260
• Publication Number:
  US 20180364652A1
• Time in Patent Office: 713 Days
• Field of Search: 701 50
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1271 for measuring crop flow
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1274 for drives
• CPC Class Codes: A01D 41/1276 for cleaning mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: A01F 12/14 with band-cutters
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/027 using neural networks only
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06G 7/66 for control systems for optimisation G06G7/122
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/02 Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining
• CPC Class Codes: G08C 17/02 using a radio link
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom

Abstract

A logic system aggregates metrics from a plurality of combine harvesters and controls a communication system to send aggregated metrics back to the combine harvesters and to send both machine performance metrics and aggregate metrics to a remote user computing system, for remote user control.

Claims

1. A computing system, comprising:

multi-machine aggregation logic configured to obtain and aggregate a set of machine performance metrics indicative of performance of a plurality of remote harvesting machines;

group metric generator logic configured to generate a set of group performance metrics based on the aggregated machine performance metrics;

a communication system; and

analytics logic configured to control the communication system to send the set of group performance metrics to each of the plurality of remote harvesting machines from which the set of machine performance metrics are obtained, and to send the obtained machine performance metrics and the set of group performance metrics to a remote computing system corresponding to the plurality of remote harvesting machines.

2. The computing system of claim 1 wherein the multi-machine aggregation logic is configured to control the communication system to obtain the set of machine performance metrics from a first plurality of remote harvesting machines and wherein the analytics logic is configured to control the communication system to send machine performance metrics obtained from a subset of the remote harvesting machines to the remote computing system corresponding to the subset of remote harvesting machines.

3. The computing system of claim 2 and further comprising:

a data store storing mappings that map remote harvesting machines to remote computing systems.

4. The computing system of claim 3 wherein the analytics logic is configured to access the mappings to identify the subset of remote harvesting machines corresponding to the remote computing system.

5. The computing system of claim 4 wherein the analytics computing system is configured to access the mappings to identify a plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines that are each mapped to a different remote computing system.

6. The computing system of claim 5 wherein the analytics logic is configured to control the communication system to send the machine performance metrics from each of the plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines to the different remote computing systems to which they are mapped.

7. The computing system of claim 6 wherein the group metric generator logic comprises:

fleet benchmark generator logic configured to generate a fleet benchmark for each machine performance metric in the set of machine performance metrics, based on machine performance metrics aggregated by the multi-machine aggregation logic for a fleet of remote harvesting machines that are run by a same organization.

8. The computing system of claim 6 wherein the group metric generator logic comprises:

performance distribution and range generator logic configured to generate a performance distribution based on machine performance metrics aggregated by the multi-machine aggregation logic.

9. A computer implemented method, comprising:

obtaining a set of machine performance metrics, from a plurality of different remote harvesting machines, indicative of performance of the plurality of different remote harvesting machines;

aggregating the sets of machine performance metrics to obtain aggregated machine performance metrics, aggregated across the plurality of different remote harvesting machines;

generating a set of group performance metrics based on the aggregated machine performance metrics;

controlling a communication system to send the set of group performance metrics to each of the plurality of different remote harvesting machines from which the set of performance metrics are obtained; and

controlling the communication system to send the obtained machine performance metrics and the set of group performance metrics to a remote computing system corresponding to the plurality of different remote harvesting machines.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 9 wherein obtaining the set of machine performance metrics comprises controlling the communication system to obtain the set of machine performance metrics from a first plurality of remote harvesting machines and wherein controlling the communication system to send the obtained machine performance metrics comprises:

controlling the communication system to send machine performance metrics obtained from a subset of the remote harvesting machines to the remote computing system corresponding to the subset of remote harvesting machines.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10 and further comprising:

accessing mappings that map remote harvesting machines to remote computing systems to identify the subset of remote harvesting machines corresponding to the remote computing system.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 11 wherein accessing the mappings comprises:

accessing the mappings to identify a plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines that are each mapped to a different remote computing system.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 12 wherein controlling the communication system to send the machine performance metrics comprises:

controlling the communication system to send the machine performance metrics from each of the plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines to the different remote computing systems to which they are mapped.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 13 generating a set of group performance metrics comprises:

generating a fleet benchmark for each machine performance metric in the set of machine performance metrics, based on the aggregated machine performance metrics aggregated for a fleet of remote harvesting machines that are run by a same organization.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 13 generating a set of group performance metrics comprises:

generating a performance distribution metric based on the aggregated machine performance metrics.

16. A computing system, comprising:

multi-machine aggregation logic configured to obtain and aggregate a set of machine performance metrics, indicative of performance of a plurality of remote harvesting machines, from the plurality of remote harvesting machines;

group metric generator logic configured to generate a set of group performance metrics based on the aggregated machine performance metrics;

a communication system; and

analytics logic configured to control the communication system to send the set of group performance metrics to each of the plurality of remote harvesting machines from which the set of machine performance metrics are obtained, and to send the set of machine performance metrics obtained from a subset of the remote harvesting machines to a remote computing system corresponding to the subset of remote harvesting machines, and to send the set of group performance metrics to the remote computing system.

17. The computing system of claim 16 and further comprising:

a data store storing mappings that map remote harvesting machines to remote computing systems, wherein the analytics logic is configured to access the mappings to identify the subset of remote harvesting machines corresponding to the remote computing system.

18. The computing system of claim 17 wherein the analytics computing system is configured to access the mappings to identify a plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines that are each mapped to a different remote computing system and to control the communication system to send the machine performance metrics from each of the plurality of subsets of remote harvesting machines to the different remote computing systems to which they are mapped.

19. The computing system of claim 18 wherein the group metric generator logic comprises:

fleet benchmark generator logic configured to generate a fleet benchmark for each machine performance metric in the set of machine performance metrics, based on machine performance metrics aggregated by the multi-machine aggregation logic for a fleet of remote harvesting machines that are run by a same organization.

20. The computing system of claim 18 wherein the group metric generator logic comprises:

performance distribution and range generator logic configured to generate a performance distribution based on machine performance metrics aggregated by the multi-machine aggregation logic.