US-12619235-B2 - Agricultural machine control based on agronomic and machine parameters

US12619235B2US 12619235 B2US12619235 B2US 12619235B2US-12619235-B2

Abstract

A control system detects an agricultural machine position to determine when the agricultural machine is approaching a decision point. The decision point is a point at which the agricultural machine can move forward along one of two or more predefined possible paths. The control system detects agronomic factors and vehicle-related parameters to decide on the path to take at the decision point. The control system then generates control signals to pursue the path decided upon.

Inventors

SHRIRAAM PRABU SUBRAMANIAN
TYLER D. SCHLEICHER

Assignees

DEERE & COMPANY

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20221004

Claims (16)

1 . An agricultural system, comprising: at least one processor; and memory storing computer executable instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the agricultural system to: detect a decision point, indicative of a location in a travel path over a field, at which an agricultural machine can follow a possible path that includes unharvested crop; process one or more crop damage parameters to identify a crop damage result indicative of estimated crop damage the agricultural machine will inflict on crops in the field if the agricultural machine travels over the possible path; identify one or more maneuvers to perform along at least a portion of the possible path based on a determination that the estimated crop damage exceeds a crop damage threshold and a determination that the possible path has a path length less than a path length threshold; and control the agricultural machine to perform the one or more maneuvers.
2 . The agricultural system of claim 1 , wherein the path length threshold is defined based on one or more characteristics of the agricultural machine.
3 . The agricultural system of claim 2 , wherein the one or more characteristics comprise one or more physical properties of the agricultural machine.
4 . The agricultural system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more maneuvers comprises a reverse maneuver that reverses the agricultural machine from a point along the possible path toward the decision point.
5 . The agricultural system of claim 4 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the agricultural system to: determine a likelihood that the agricultural machine can successfully execute the reverse maneuver based on one or more characteristics of the reverse maneuver and one or more characteristics of the agricultural machine; and control the agricultural machine based on the likelihood.
6 . A computer implemented method of controlling an agricultural machine, the computer implemented method comprising: detecting a decision point, indicative of a location in a field over which the agricultural machine is traveling, at which the agricultural machine can follow one of a plurality of different pre-defined possible paths; identifying a particular path, of the plurality of different pre-defined possible paths, as based on a decision criterion; processing one or more crop damage parameters to identify a crop damage result indicative of estimated crop damage if the agricultural machine travels over the particular path; based on a determination that the estimated crop damage exceeds a crop damage threshold, determining that the particular path has a path length less than a path length threshold; based on the particular path having a path length less than the path length threshold, identifying one or more maneuvers that, after traversing at least a portion of the particular path, return the agricultural machine to the decision point and traverse at least one other path of the plurality of different pre-defined possible paths; and controlling the agricultural machine based on the one or more maneuvers.
7 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the decision criterion comprises path length.
8 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein identifying the particular path comprises selecting a shortest path of the plurality of different pre-defined possible paths.
9 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the one or more maneuvers comprise a reverse maneuver from a point along the particular path toward the decision point.
10 . The computer implemented method of claim 6 , wherein the path length threshold is defined based on one or more characteristics of the agricultural machine.
11 . The computer implemented method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more characteristics comprise one or more physical properties of the agricultural machine.
12 . A computer implemented method of controlling an agricultural machine, the computer implemented method comprising: detecting a decision point, indicative of a location in a travel path over a field, at which the agricultural machine can follow a possible path that includes unharvested crop; processing one or more crop damage parameters to identify a crop damage result indicative of estimated crop damage the agricultural machine will inflict on crops in the field if the agricultural machine travels over the possible path; identifying one or more maneuvers to perform along at least a portion of the possible path based on a determination that the estimated crop damage exceeds a crop damage threshold and a determination that the possible path has a path length less than a path length threshold; and controlling the agricultural machine to perform the one or more maneuvers.
13 . The computer implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the path length threshold is defined based on one or more characteristics of the agricultural machine.
14 . The computer implemented method of claim 13 , wherein the one or more characteristics comprise one or more physical properties of the agricultural machine.
15 . The computer implemented method of claim 12 , wherein the one or more maneuvers comprises a reverse maneuver that reverses the agricultural machine from a point along the possible path toward the decision point.
16 . The computer implemented method of claim 15 , and further comprising: determining a likelihood that the agricultural machine can successfully execute the reverse maneuver based on one or more characteristics of the reverse maneuver and one or more characteristics of the agricultural machine; and controlling the agricultural machine based on the likelihood.

Description

The present description relates to agricultural machines. More specifically, the present description relates to controlling agricultural machines based on agronomic and machine parameters. BACKGROUND There are a wide variety of different types of agricultural machines. Some such machines include planters, harvesters, sprayers, tillage machines, and other machines. Such machines may be self-propelled machines, or they may be machines that have attached implements. Similarly, such machines may have towed implements. In addition, the form of the machines can take a wide variety of different forms. For instance, the machine forms can include combine harvesters, tractors, articulated tractors, machines that have wheels or tracks, machines that have controllable implements or attachments, among other forms. Such agricultural machines can be controlled using different types of control systems. Some control systems are manually controlled, whereas others are semi-automated systems. For example, a semi-automated system may use automatic machine navigation to navigate the agricultural machine along a guidance line, but use manual inputs to perform other functions. Still other machines are fully autonomous machines. With fully autonomous machines, a farmer or other operator may move the machine to a given field and then initiate the autonomous operation of the machine. The machine may operate autonomously in a manned configuration in which an operator is present in the operating compartment of the machine, but the machine is still operating autonomously, or in an unmanned configuration in which no operator is present in the operating compartment of the machine. The discussion above is merely provided for general background information and is not intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. SUMMARY A control system detects an agricultural machine position to determine when the agricultural machine is approaching a decision point. The decision point is a point at which the agricultural machine can follow one of two or more predefined possible paths. The control system detects agronomic factors and vehicle-related parameters to decide on the path to take at the decision point. The control system then generates control signals to pursue the path decided upon. This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter. The claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in the background. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a pictorial illustration showing one example of an agricultural machine approaching a decision point. FIGS. 2A and 2B show a block diagram of one example of an agricultural system architecture. FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating one example of the operation of an agricultural system. FIG. 4 is a flow diagram showing another, more detailed, example of the operation of an agricultural system. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing one example of the agricultural system architecture shown in FIG. 2, deployed in a remote server environment. FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing one example of a computing environment. DETAILED DESCRIPTION As discussed above, there are a wide variety of different types of agricultural machines that are controlled using different types of control systems, such as manually actuated control systems, semi-autonomous systems, and fully autonomous systems. There are many points during the operation of an agricultural machine where a runtime decision, as to the route that the machine is to take, must be made. For instance, everywhere that there is a branch where the agricultural machine can take one of two or more predefined possible routes, or paths a decision must be made as to which particular path to follow. The predefined possible paths are predefined in that they may be defined, prior to the agricultural machine reaching the decision point, by any of a variety of different criteria. Such criteria can include a previous planting operation or other previous operation, the location of an obstacle that the agricultural machine must navigate around in one of two different directions, or other criteria that can be used to define possible paths at a decision point, prior to the agricultural machine reaching the decision point. By way of example, FIG. 1 is a pictorial illustration showing one example of such a decision point. In FIG. 1, an agricultural machine (e.g., a combine harvester) 100 is following a guidance line 102 which is provided by a navigation system. It can be seen that the planted rows overlap one another, and diverge into two different directions, beginning at decision point 104. Thus, two dif