Patent classifications
A01M7/0096
SPRAYER NOZZLE MONITOR AND CONTROL SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR SAME
A sprayer nozzle assembly control system includes a modulating nozzle assembly having a control valve and a spray tip. At least one spray modulation actuator is included with one or both of the control valve or the spray tip, and the spray modulation actuator is configured to control an actual spray profile of a sprayed agricultural product. A spray sensor is configured to monitor the actual spray profile of the spray tip and is in communication with the spray sensor. The nozzle assembly controller controls the actual spray profile and includes a comparator to compare the actual spray profile with a specified spray profile and generate a spray profile deviation. The nozzle assembly controller includes a spray modulation interface in communication with the at least one spray modulation actuator, and the spray modulation interface directs actuation of the at least one spray modulation actuator to modulate the actual spray profile.
Spray System with Calibration
An agricultural spray system may have several nozzles oriented in an airstream. A controller may sense the presence or absence of foliage over many points, then determine which nozzle to activate and for how long. Each nozzle may spray in a fixed direction, and therefore may be assigned a zone for application. A real time calculation may be made to apply product through the nozzle based on the amount of foliage in a nozzle's zone at that instant. In some cases, the amount of material demanded for a nozzle may be higher than that nozzle can deliver, leading to a situation where the demanded duty cycle may be higher than 100% for that nozzle at that time. After passing through a particular field, the duty cycle of the nozzles over the field may be analyzed, and from that analysis, recommended changes to the nozzle sizes, traverse speed, or other factors may be made to increase the coverage and spray efficiency of the spray system.
System and Method to Determine Condition of Nozzles of an Agricultural Implement
In an aspect of the disclosure there is provided a system including nozzles disposed along an implement, a camera disposed on the implement to capture images of a spray from a nozzle of the nozzles over a time period and a processor to assign a rating to the images to account for the nozzle intermittently being off and not counting the nozzle as plugged. The processor to determine a running average for a condition of the nozzle using the assigned rating for the images.
MODULATING NOZZLE CONTROL SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SAME
A modulating nozzle controller for an agricultural sprayer includes one or more modulating nozzle assemblies each having a spray tip modulating element and an actuator operatively coupled with the spay tip modulating element. The spray tip modulating element controls an orifice profile of a spray tip. A processor system controls the orifice profiles of the one or more modulating nozzle assemblies and includes an agricultural product input to receive a specified field flow rate and a specified droplet size for an agricultural product and a sprayer speed input to receive an agricultural sprayer speed. A modulating nozzle profiler includes an orifice profile generator configured to generate an orifice profile instruction based on the specified field flow rate, the agricultural sprayer speed and the specified droplet size. The spray tip modulating element and the actuator control the orifice profile according to the orifice profile instruction to achieve the specified droplet size.
IMPLEMENT FAILURE DETECTION AND ADAPTIVE REPLAN FOR AN AGRICULTURAL VEHICLE
An agricultural work system for dispensing agricultural product to a field in a plurality of passes based on a field plan. The agricultural work system includes an implement including a plurality of row units, wherein each of the plurality of row units is configured to dispense the agricultural product to the field in rows across a width of the one of the plurality of passes. A product delivery system is configured to deliver the agricultural product to the plurality of row units. A sensor system directed to the plurality of row units to identify a lack of the agricultural product being dispensed from one or more of the plurality of row units and a controller is operatively connected to the sensor system. The controller is configured to facilitate providing a modified field plan for dispensing the product to the field, wherein the modified field plan identifies a coverage gap.
Sprayer system
A spraying system that includes at least one camera to determine for at least one nozzle spray angle, average of spray angle, standard deviation of spray angle, relative pressure, absolute pressure, relative flow rate, absolute flow rate, percent plugged, and/or spray pattern uniformity/variability of the spray from the at least one nozzle.
Determination of droplet characteristics
A system and method for the detection and tracking of droplets sprayed from an agricultural spray nozzle is provided. The system includes a sensor configured to observe droplets sprayed from the nozzle, a frame extractor module, a droplet shape and size extraction module, a droplet tracking module, and a data log module. The system may provide an artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled framework capable of processing images obtained of droplets, detecting and tracking all droplets appearing across image frames, and determining the droplets' geometric and dynamic data. The system further provides for the integration of deep-learning techniques into an image processing algorithm which enables precise and reliable determination of droplet characteristics. In addition, the deep-learning framework produces consistent results under a variety of uncertain imaging conditions.