A spreader tool for an agricultural machine, which includes an inlet into which material is passed from one or more further components of the agricultural machine and an outlet through which the material may be deposited from the machine. A sensing unit is positioned within the flow path of material deposited through the outlet and configured, in use, to measure an impact parameter indicative of a force and/or frequency of material deposited from the spreader tool and incident on a detection surface of the sensing unit, which may be used to determine the grain loss associated with the machine.

A header for a harvesting machine which includes one or more crop-engaging components and a sensing unit positioned within a flowpath of material and downstream of at least one of the one or more crop-engaging components. The sensing unit is configured, in use, to measure an impact parameter indicative of a force and/or frequency of material incident on a detection surface of the sensing unit in order to determine a measure of grain loss associated with the header.

An agricultural production machine comprising a characteristic diagram control is disclosed. The characteristic diagram control comprises one or more characteristic diagrams. Each characteristic diagram is configured to optimize operating parameters of the process units of the agricultural production machine. The particular characteristic diagram is designed as an initial characteristic diagram. In the initial characteristic diagram, at least the relationship between operating parameters of a process unit and quality parameters is described by initial operating points. A control characteristic curve is associated with the particular characteristic diagram, and the control characteristic curve lies around the minimum or maximum of the particular quality parameter.

A method of controlling a mobile agricultural machine that includes detecting a target value setting input identifying a target metric value for a quality metric representing a performance characteristic of the mobile agricultural machine and having an inverse relationship to machine speed, receiving machine data indicative of operating parameters on the mobile agricultural machine, generating, based on the machine data, a current metric value for the quality metric, determining a target machine speed based on the current metric value relative to the target metric value, and outputting a control instruction that controls the mobile agricultural machine based on the target machine speed.

A method and system are provided for determining a threshing loss in a threshing system. The method includes irradiating a crop sample downstream at least a portion of a threshing system with electromagnetic waves having a frequency in a range of 0.1-10 THz, measuring a reflection and/or a transmission of the electromagnetic waves by the crop sample, establishing, based on the measured reflection and/or transmission, an at least two-dimensional terahertz image of the crop sample, identifying at least one ear in the terahertz image, identifying at least one grain kernel in the identified ear, and determining the threshing loss based on the identified grain kernel.

An embodiment includes a combine having a grain sample sensor for detecting frequencies of impacts of separated grain on the grain sample sensor, a grain loss sensor for detecting frequencies of impacts of residue and lost grain on the grain loss sensor, and a controller. The controller is configured to receive, from the grain sample sensor, the frequencies of the impacts of the separated grain, receive, from the grain loss sensor, the frequencies of the impacts of the residue and the lost grain, set a detection frequency band based on the frequencies of the impacts of the separated grain, filter the frequencies of the impacts of the residue and the lost grain based on the detection frequency band, determine, from the filtered frequencies, grain loss information, and indicate the grain loss information to an operator of the combine, or control the combine based on the grain loss information.

In one aspect, a system for determining soil clod size distribution as an agricultural implement is being towed across a field by a work vehicle may include a vision-based sensor provided in operative association with one of the work vehicle or the agricultural implement. As such, the vision-based sensor may be configured to capture vision data associated with a portion of the field present within a field of view of the vision-based sensor. Furthermore, the system may include a controller configured to receive vision data from the vision-based sensor. Moreover, the controller may be further configured to analyze the received vision data using a spectral analysis technique to determine a size distribution of soil clods present within the field of view of the vision-based sensor.

A harvesting machine has a controlled subsystem that performs harvesting machine functionality, and a control system that controls the controlled subsystem. A header is mounted to the harvesting machine and has row dividers (that divide rows of crop stalks) and gathering chains. A set of crop loss inhibitors is mounted proximate a forward portion of each of the gathering chains, in a direction of travel of the harvesting machine. The crop loss inhibitors also include a sensor that senses a variable, indicative of a crop attribute, as each crop stalk passes through the set of crop loss inhibitors.

An agricultural harvesting machine, with at least one work assembly and a monitoring assembly, is disclosed. The agricultural harvesting machine transports harvested material in a harvested material flow along a harvested material transport path. The monitoring assembly includes an measuring system positioned on the harvested material transport path and an evaluation device configured to determine at least one harvested material parameter. The measuring system includes a first passive optical sensor that senses image data indicative of visible light in a first section and a second non-passive non-optical sensor that senses data in a second section that at least partly overlaps the first section. The evaluation device correlates the image data for the overlapping section from the first optical sensor and the data from the second optical sensor and determines, based on the correlation, at least one harvested material parameter.

A sensor unit for use in the multiphase flow of a harvesting machine, wherein the sensor unit exhibits sensors for transmitting and/or receiving electromagnetic radiation. In addition, the sensor unit has at least one device for acquiring flow parameters of the multiphase flow. The measuring values of the sensor unit can advantageously be used for controlling the operating mode of the harvesting machine.