JPH0445473Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Field of industrial application] The present invention improves the handling depth of the grain culm fed to the threshing section.
The present invention relates to an automatic handling depth adjustment device for a harvester that adjusts the handling depth based on the detection result of the culm length.

[Prior art]

The automatic handling depth adjustment device in a harvester has a short culm sensor for detecting short culms and a long culm sensor for detecting long culms arranged side by side in a direction perpendicular to the feeding direction of grain culms. A culm length sensor is installed on the entrance side of the threshing section, and when the culm length sensor detects a short culm, the vertical conveyance chain is moved to the deep handling side, and when a long culm is detected, the vertical conveyance chain is moved to the shallow handling side. Automatically adjusts handling depth by tilting.

[Problem that the invention attempts to solve]

In such a conventional automatic handling depth adjustment device, short culms and long culms are mixed in the grain culm fed to the threshing section, and the short culm is detected by the short culm sensor, and the long culm is detected by the long culm sensor. If long culm detection is repeated frequently, that is, if the culm length fluctuates greatly, the handling depth adjustment operation based on the detection result cannot follow the culm length fluctuation, and the grain is fed to the threshing section during that time. Grain culms cannot be threshed at an appropriate processing depth, and there is a risk that unprocessed grains may be left unprocessed.

Therefore, in agriculture, we set up a dead zone in which the physical quantities that should be controlled are not controlled, counted the frequency at which the physical quantities deviate from the dead zone, and changed the range of the dead zone according to this frequency to improve the control accuracy of the physical quantities. An automatic adjustment device for a machine is shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 58-99801.

However, since this control device counts the frequency at which the physical quantity deviates from the dead zone and changes the range of the dead zone according to that frequency, there is a waiting time until the range of the dead zone changes, and the physical quantity changes quickly. If it changes, there is a problem that the range of the dead zone does not follow properly and the control accuracy decreases.

The present invention was developed in view of the above circumstances, and even when the culm length of the grain culm fed to the threshing section fluctuates greatly, the handling depth can be adjusted with high precision by quickly following the fluctuations. The object of the present invention is to provide an automatic handling depth adjustment device that can perform the following operations.

[Means for solving problems]

The automatic handling depth adjustment device for a harvester according to the present invention is
In an automatic handling depth adjustment device for a harvester that detects the culm length of grain culms fed to a threshing unit and automatically adjusts the handling depth based on the detection result, a culm length detection unit that detects fluctuations in the culm length; , means for calculating a representative culm length which is an average culm length value and an average culm length value of a predetermined detection area based on the detection result of the culm length detection section, and a means for calculating a standard deviation from the calculated average culm length value and representative culm length. and is characterized in that it is configured to change the dead zone width according to the standard deviation.

[Effect]

When the culm length detection section detects a change in culm length, a representative culm length is calculated, which is the culm length average value and the culm length average value of a predetermined detection area. A standard deviation is calculated from the calculated average culm length and representative culm length, and the dead zone width is changed according to the standard deviation.

This allows the dead zone width to be changed without waiting time based on the detected culm length.

〔Example〕

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below based on drawings showing embodiments thereof. FIG. 1 is an external perspective view of a harvesting machine equipped with an automatic handling depth adjustment device according to the present invention (hereinafter referred to as the proposed device), and FIG. 2 is a schematic front view of the drive mechanism of the vertical conveyance chain. .

In the figure, reference numeral 1 denotes a main body section equipped with a threshing section 2, and a reaping section 5 composed of a cutting blade 3, a grain culm lifting device 4, etc. is attached to the front side of the main body section 1 so as to be movable up and down. ing. On the rear side of the reaping section 5, there is a vertical conveyance chain 1 for conveying the harvested grain culms rearward and upward.
0 is provided with its terminal end facing the starting end of the grain culm transfer device 11 extending along the handling opening of the threshing section 2.

The grain stalks harvested by the reaping section 5 are conveyed to the front part of the threshing section 2 by the vertical conveyance chain 10 via a lower conveyance device (not shown), and then transferred to the grain stalk transfer device 11. In the device 11, while being transferred with the tip side inserted into the handling chamber 2a of the threshing section 2 through the handling port, the grain is threshed in the handling cylinder 2b provided in the handling chamber 2a. There is.

As shown in FIG. 2, the vertical conveyance chain 10 has its left (right side in FIG. 2) central portion rotatably supported on the upper end of a column 12 erected at the front of the main body 1. The bracket 10a protruding from the lower right side of the bracket 10a has a drive arm 14 that moves forward and backward according to the rotation of the drive motor 13.
The tip is rotatably supported.

When the drive motor 13 rotates forward (or reversely) and the drive arm 14 advances (or retracts), the vertical conveyance chain 10 pivots around the pivot point of the support column 12 and rotates in the opposite direction when viewed from the front. It is designed to be tilted clockwise (or clockwise).

Then, when the vertical conveyance chain 10 is tilted counterclockwise (or clockwise), the grain stalks conveyed by the chain 10 are transferred to the grain stalk transfer device 11. As a result, the main side of the stock (or the tip side) is pinched more, and the insertion length into the handling chamber 2a becomes longer (or shorter), and the threshing is performed in a deep (or shallow) state. It will be processed.

FIG. 3 is a schematic plan view of the front part of the harvester, and FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the control system of the proposed device. The culm length sensor 6 using an image sensor includes a part of the grain culm transported by the vertical transport chain 10, and is parallel to the transport direction of the grain culm, as shown by the two-dot chain line in FIG. In order to image the inside of the rectangular imaging field A, it is attached to the front part of the threshing section 2 so as to face slightly forward and downward.

The culm length sensor 6 includes, for example, a CCD ( Charge Coupled Device ) 60 having n×m pixels and an optical lens 61 for forming an image of an object on the photosensitive surface of the CCD 60. The output signal is sent to the A/D converter 70.
, video memories 71a and 71b, and an arithmetic control section 72.

The CCD 60 accumulates charges corresponding to the intensity and irradiation time of light that passes through the optical lens 61 and irradiates each pixel, and receives clock pulses from the calculation control section 72 at predetermined time intervals. Each time, an image signal having a level corresponding to the charge in each pixel is outputted to the A/D converter 70 of the image signal processing unit 7 in the order in which the transport direction of the grain culm in the imaging field of view A is the main scanning direction.

This image signal is sent to the A/D converter 70.
After being converted into light and dark binarized based on a predetermined threshold value, it is applied to the video memory 71a in response to the clock pulse, and a binary value consisting of "1" representing a bright area and "0" representing a dark area is applied to the video memory 71a. Stored as image data. When one frame has been stored in the video memory 71a, it is similarly stored in the video memory 71b in response to the next clock pulse, and thereafter the binary image data is stored in the video memories 71a, 71b.
are stored alternately.

The arithmetic control unit 72 using a microcomputer reads image data from the video memory 71a or 71b, and calculates the culm length of the grain culm within the imaging field of view A from this image data, as will be described later. is calculated as the standard deviation of the culm length calculation value, and control signals V ₁ and V ₂ that become high or low level according to these calculated values are sent to the drive motor 1 for tilting the vertical conveyance chain 10 as described above.
The signal is output to the drive circuit 8 of No. 3.

The motor drive circuit 8 is constructed by connecting electromagnetic relays 81, 82 and switching transistors 83, 84 as shown in FIG. 4. When the switching transistor 83 (or 84) operates, the electromagnetic relay 81 (or or 82) is excited, and the electromagnetic relay 81 (or 82) is excited.
2) is excited, current is supplied to the drive motor 13, and the motor 13 rotates in reverse (or forward).
However, the vertical conveyance chain 10 is shallow handling (or deep handling)
It is designed to be tilted to the side. The switching transistors 83 and 84 are supplied with control signals V ₁ and V ₂ output from the arithmetic control section 72, respectively, and when the control signal V ₁ is at a high level, the switching transistor 83
However, when the control signal _V2 is at a high level, the switching transistors 84 are respectively activated.

Now, the operation of the present device configured as above will be explained. The harvester travels over the field while operating the reaping section 5, and uses the cutting blade 3 to harvest the grain culms planted on the field. The harvested grain culms are conveyed to the front part of the threshing section 2 by the vertical conveyance chain 10, and then transferred to the grain culm clamping transfer device 11, where the grain tip side is transferred into the handling room 2a. While the grains are being inserted and transported to the rear, they are threshed in a handling cylinder 2b installed in a handling chamber 2a.

During this period, the culm length sensor 6
The grain culm being transported is imaged within the imaging field of view A, and an image signal obtained from the imaging result is output to the image signal processing section 7.

5 and 6 are schematic diagrams showing the imaging results of the culm length sensor 6. FIG. In these figures, the hatched portion is the portion where the grain culm is present, and the other portions are background portions such as a part of the aircraft body imaged together with the grain culm. When the culm length sensor 6 captures an image within the imaging field of view A, the part where the grain culm is present is imaged brighter than the background. When converted into light/dark binarization, the grain culm is “1” representing the bright part.
Then, the background portion is binarized to "0" and stored in the video memory 71a or 71b.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing the control contents of the arithmetic control section 72. The arithmetic control unit 72 reads the binary image data stored in the video memory 71a or 71b, and converts them into m images in a direction perpendicular to the grain culm transport direction, that is, in the vertical direction in FIGS. 5 and 6. The culm length l on each sub-scanning line is determined by detecting the position where the image data transitions from "0" to "1", that is, the position of the boundary between the background and the grain culm. Calculate _i (i=1...m). For example, when examining the i-th main scanning line from the top (head side) to the bottom (stock side) as shown in Figure 5, the
Assuming that the transition occurs at a position corresponding to the j-th pixel among n pixels of the CCD 60,
The culm length l _i on the main scanning line is calculated by the following equation.

l _i = n-j (1) Next, the calculation control unit 72 calculates the average value of the culm length l _i over the entire imaging field of view A and the average value of the culm length l i over the entire imaging field of view A, and the average value of the culm length l i over the entire imaging field of view A, for example, the forward k The representative culm length l is calculated as the average value of the culm length l _i on the main scanning line of the book using the following formula.

=1/m _n 〓 ⁱ⁼¹ l _i …(2) l=1/k _n 〓 ^i=m(k+1) l _i …(3) After that, the arithmetic control unit 72 calculates using equation (1). The standard deviation S of the culm length within the imaging field of view A is calculated using the following equation using each culm length l _i and the average culm length calculated using equation (2).

The value of the standard deviation S obtained in this way indicates the fluctuation in the culm length of the grain culm imaged by the culm length sensor 6, and when the fluctuation in the culm length is small over the entire imaging field A as shown in FIG. is small, and conversely becomes large when the variation in culm length is large as shown in FIG. After calculating the standard deviation S using equation (4), the arithmetic control unit 72 compares it with the preset upper limit value Smax and lower limit value Smin of the standard deviation, and determines that S is
If S is greater than or equal to Smax, S=Smax, and if S is less than or equal to Smin, S=Smin,
Furthermore, if S is smaller than Smax and larger than Smin, the standard deviation S calculated using equation (4)
The dead band width Δl is calculated by using the value as it is and multiplying it by a predetermined constant C. Next, half of the dead zone width Δl is added to the preset standard culm length l _S , which is the reference for adjusting the handling depth, to determine the upper limit of the culm length.
The lower limit value l _nio of the culm length is calculated by subtracting l _nax and half of the dead zone width Δl from the standard culm length l _S. Then, the representative culm length l calculated previously using equation (3) is compared with the upper limit value l _nax and the lower limit value l _nio , and if l is greater than or equal to l _nax , in other words, it is calculated from the imaging result of the culm length sensor 6. When the culm length to be handled is longer than the culm length represented by l _nax , the control signal V ₁ is changed to a high level in order to tilt the vertical conveyance chain 10 to the shallow handling side, while l is l _nio In other words, if the culm length calculated from the imaging result of the culm length sensor 6 is shorter than the culm length represented by l _nio , the vertical conveyance chain 10 is tilted toward the deep handling side. Control signal _V2 is turned to high level.
Further, when l is larger than l _nio and smaller than l _nax , in other words, the culm length calculated from the imaging result of the culm length sensor 6 is within the dead zone where the standard culm length l _s is the median value. When the culm length is within the range of the width Δl, both the control signals V ₁ and V ₂ are set to low level so that the drive motor 13 is not rotated. As a result, the grain culm fed to the threshing section 2 in the vertical conveyance chain 10 has a representative culm length l calculated from the imaging result of the culm length sensor 6, which is between the upper limit l _nax and the lower limit l _nio of the culm length. The processing depth will be automatically adjusted to a value between. The dead band width Δl, which is the difference between the upper limit l _nax and the lower limit l _nio , is
It increases or decreases depending on the size of the standard deviation S calculated by formula (4), so if the variation in culm length within the imaging field of view A is small as shown in Fig. 5, the standard deviation S calculated by formula (3) is In order to keep the representative culm length l within a relatively narrow range centered on the reference culm length l _s ,
As shown in the figure, when the variation in the culm length within the imaging field of view A is large, the treatment depth adjustment is performed so that the representative culm length l falls within a relatively wide range centered on the reference culm length l _s . In other words, when long culms and short culms are mixed in the grain culms conveyed by the vertical conveyance chain 10, the handling depth is adjusted for small fluctuations in culm length that are included in the dead zone width Δl. Since no adjustment is made, it is possible to adjust the handling depth to reliably follow large fluctuations in culm length.On the other hand, when grain culms with uniform culm length are fed in the vertical conveyance chain 10, the culm length The handling depth is finely adjusted in response to small fluctuations.

In this way, the dead zone width can be changed without waiting time by calculating the average culm length and representative culm length based on the detected culm length, and calculating the standard deviation. The range of will follow appropriately.

Note that the procedure for calculating the representative culm length l is not limited to the procedure shown in this embodiment. For example, the culm length l _i on a predetermined sub-scanning line may be used as the representative culm length l, and the culm length average value and standard deviation S may be calculated. In this embodiment, as shown in equations (2) and (4), the imaging field of view A
Although these values are calculated as the average value and standard deviation of the culm length over the entire area, it goes without saying that they may be calculated in a part of the area within the imaging field of view A.

Furthermore, in this embodiment, a case has been described in which a two-dimensional image sensor is used as the culm length sensor, but a one-dimensional image sensor is installed at the front side of the threshing section 2 with its longitudinal direction perpendicular to the grain culm conveyance direction. A culm length sensor configured to image the grain culm with the sensor, or a plurality of ultrasonic receivers arranged in parallel in a direction perpendicular to the grain culm conveying direction on the front side of the threshing section 2, and a grain culm It is also possible to use a culm length sensor using ultrasonic waves, which is provided with an ultrasonic transmitter sandwiching and facing the ultrasonic transmitter, and is configured to detect the culm length based on the number of receivers that receive the ultrasonic waves from the transmitter. However, in this case, when calculating the average culm length and standard deviation S in the above embodiment, it is sufficient to use, for example, the culm length detection values obtained several times before the present time, and the representative culm length l may be calculated using the culm length detected at the present time. The culm length detection value may be used.

〔effect〕

As detailed above, in the present device, the variation in the culm length of the grain culms fed to the threshing section is detected, the average culm length and the average culm length of a predetermined detection area are calculated, and the average culm length is calculated. Since the standard deviation is calculated from the value and the representative culm length, and the dead zone width is changed according to this standard deviation, there is no waiting time before the dead zone width is changed, and even if the culm length fluctuates quickly. , the handling depth can be adjusted with high precision without making the dead zone width inappropriate. In addition, the width of the dead zone when adjusting the handling depth is changed based on the fluctuations in the grain culm fed to the threshing section, so if the culm length fluctuation is large, it will not be affected by small fluctuations in the culm length. It can reliably follow large fluctuation ranges, and when culm length fluctuations are small, fine handling depth adjustment is performed for small fluctuation ranges, and excellent effects such as threshing can always be performed at an appropriate handling depth are achieved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, in which Fig. 1 is an external perspective view of a harvester equipped with the proposed device, Fig. 2 is a schematic front view of the vertical conveyance chain drive mechanism, and Fig. 3 is a harvesting machine. A schematic plan view of the front part of the machine, Fig. 4 is a block diagram of the control system of the proposed device, Figs. 5 and 6 are schematic diagrams showing the imaging results of the culm length sensor, and Fig. 7 is the control of the arithmetic control section. This is a flowchart showing the contents. 2... Threshing section, 5... Reaping section, 6... Culm length sensor, 7... Image signal processing section, 8... Motor drive circuit, 10... Vertical conveyance chain, 72... Arithmetic control section, A... Imaging field of view.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim for Utility Model Registration] An automatic handling depth adjustment device for a harvester that detects the culm length of grain culms fed to a threshing section and automatically adjusts the handling depth based on the detection result, comprising: a culm length detection unit that detects fluctuation; a means for calculating a representative culm length that is an average culm length value and an average culm length value in a predetermined detection area based on the detection result of the culm length detection unit; 1. An automatic handling depth adjustment device for a harvester, comprising means for calculating a standard deviation, and configured to change a dead zone width according to the standard deviation.