JPS6244884B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a mobile agricultural machine equipped with an automatic direction change device that automatically changes the direction of the machine when one working stroke is completed and directs it to the next working direction. The purpose is to automatically orient the final attitude of the aircraft after changing direction in a direction suitable for the next task.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a side view of a combine harvester, which is an example of a mobile agricultural machine, and FIG. 2 shows a schematic plan view of its front part and running part. In the figure, 1, 1 is a pair of left and right crawler traveling devices, 2... is a pulling device, 3 is a reaping device, 4 is a lateral conveying device that conveys multiple rows of harvested grain culms laterally to the center and merges them, 5 is a merging device 6 is a threshing device, 7 is a feed chain, and 8 is a waste straw processing device.

The crawler traveling devices 1, 1 are arranged on both sides of the mission case 9 as shown in FIG. The steering clutches 10, 10 are configured to be driven by a pair of single acting hydraulic cylinders 12, 12 which are controlled by an electromagnetic control valve 11. The electromagnetic control valve 11 is connected via a control circuit 13 to stem culm contact sensors S ₁ , S ₂ , S ₃ provided at the front of the machine, and is used for row mowing (reaping along grain culm rows).
When traveling, the valve 11 is activated in response to the detection of the swinging displacement of the sensors S ₁ and S ₂ so as to guide the planted grain culm between a pair of sensors S ₁ and S ₂ that are arranged opposite to each other at the uncut end of the mowing width. The machine is controlled to steer the machine, and during horizontal cutting (cutting in a direction crossing the rows of grain culms), a sensor S ₃ installed at the end of the already cut side of the cutting width is used to control the direction of the planted grain culms. It is configured to control the valve 11 in accordance with the detection of the amount of rocking displacement of this sensor _S3 so as to follow and contact the plant at the end of the most cut side. The vehicle is configured to perform automatic steering that follows.

Further, the transmission case 9 is a hydraulic continuously variable transmission HST that is rapidly connected to the engine E and capable of forward and reverse rotation.
14, and its input shaft 15 is equipped with a rotation speed detector 16. Further, the shift lever 17 of the transmission device 14 is equipped with a detection mechanism 18 for detecting the shift position, and the lever 17 is connected to the shift drive motor 20 via a friction mechanism 19.
It is configured such that it can perform any manual speed change operation, and can also be automatically operated by the motor 20, which is drive-controlled via the speed change drive circuit 21.

In the present invention, the automatic steerable combine harvester as described above is further equipped with the following automatic turning mechanism.

The aircraft is equipped with a compass 22 via a support 23 for detecting the absolute orientation of the aircraft. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the structure of this compass 22 is based on the vertical output shaft 2 of a motor 24 driven at a constant speed.
A disk 26 made of a non-magnetic material is attached to the disk 26, and a geomagnetic intensity detection mechanism 27 equipped with a magnetic flux lens and a Hall element is attached horizontally to the disk 26. Further, near the periphery of the disk 26, a fixed rotation phase angle is attached. A small hole 28 is formed in the pitch, and a photoelectric angular pulse generating mechanism 29 of a well-known structure is provided at a position opposite to this small hole 28.
Further, a photoelectric pulse generation mechanism 31 is provided opposite to another small hole 30 provided at a suitable location on the disk 26.
[Hereinafter referred to as a position pulse generating mechanism] is provided corresponding to, for example, a position in front of the aircraft body, thereby forming a compass that utilizes geomagnetism.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the outline of the automatic turning control mechanism, and A in the diagram is the magnetic compass 2.
2, the angle pulse generation mechanism 29, the position pulse generation mechanism 31, and the geomagnetic strength detection mechanism 27 are shown in the counting circuit 32, the counting circuit gate control circuit 33, the azimuth detection pulse generation circuit 34, and the azimuth conversion circuit 35. Connected like.

The angular pulse generating mechanism 29 always generates a constant periodic pulse as shown in FIG. 6A, which is used as a clock pulse. An output signal shown in FIG. 6B is obtained from the geomagnetic strength detection mechanism 27. In this embodiment, since the disk 26 is rotated clockwise, the positive peak point N is northward, the negative peak point S is southward, and the reversal point E from positive to negative
is determined to be east, and the reversal point W from negative to positive is determined to be west. The direction detection pulse generation circuit 34 outputs a signal as shown in FIG. From the position detection pulse generation mechanism 31, a sixth
As shown in Figure D, one pulse is emitted only at the forward position of the aircraft. The gate control circuit 33
includes a J-K flip-flop whose J terminal input signal and K terminal input signal are shown in FIGS. 6E and 6F. As is clear from the figure, the J terminal input signal E is based on the rising edge of the direction detection pulse C, and the K terminal input signal H is based on the rising edge of the position detection pulse D. As a result, the output signal shown in FIG. 6G is obtained from the JK flip-flop, and the inverted signal shown in FIG. 6H is transmitted from the gate control circuit 33 to the counting circuit 32 as a gate control signal.

The counting circuit 32 operates in the 0 range of the gate control signal H, and counts the number of clock pulses (12 pulses in this embodiment) during the period from the east position E to the forward position of the aircraft each time the disk 26 rotates once. or,
In the direction conversion circuit 35, the pulse generation mechanisms 29, 31
The absolute orientation of the aircraft relative to the ground is calculated from the mounting orientation with respect to the aircraft and the pulse count value in the counting circuit 32.

Next, an automatic aircraft turning control mechanism using the magnetic compass 22 will be explained.

A sensor S 4 that detects the presence or absence of grain culms by contact with the reaped grain culms is provided near the grain culm confluence point of the horizontal conveyance device ₄ in the combine main body, and this sensor S ₄ is connected to the rotation speed detector 16 It is also connected to the variable speed drive circuit 21. Also, sensor S ₄
is also connected to a memory circuit 36 connected to the orientation conversion circuit 35 of the magnetic compass 22, and is configured to store the aircraft orientation at the time when the sensor _S4 detects the absence of grain culms. . The storage circuit 36 and the orientation conversion circuit 35 are connected to an arithmetic circuit 37, which calculates the deviation between the stored reference orientation and the actual detected direction. This arithmetic circuit 37 is connected to a comparison circuit 39 together with a desired turning angle setting device 38, and this comparison circuit 39 is further connected to the valve drive circuit 13.
and is connected to the variable speed drive circuit 21.

Next, the automatic direction change operation with the above configuration will be explained.

FIG. 7 is a schematic plane showing the process of so-called circular cutting _, in which planted grain culm group B is harvested along _its outer periphery _.
Automatic follow-up mowing driving is performed using

When the machine that has completed the one-stroke reaping travel stroke a leaves the grain culm group B, the sensor _S4 detects the absence of grain culms, and from this point on, the input shaft 15 is driven a preset number of times. The gear shift lever 17 is automatically operated to neutral. In other words, when one stroke of mowing is completed, the machine moves straight a certain distance and then automatically stops.

Furthermore, the current orientation of the aircraft is stored based on the sensor _S4 detecting the absence of grain culms.

Next, the valve drive circuit 11 is activated and only the left steering clutch 10 is disengaged, and the gear shift lever 17 is automatically operated to the forward turning position set by the setting device 40, and the aircraft is moved to the preset position. It turns and moves forward in the direction (in the example, to the left). In this turning process b, the deviation between the direction detected moment by moment by the compass 22 and the reference direction stored in the memory circuit 36 is calculated by the calculation circuit 37, and this deviation is calculated by the comparison circuit 37.
9, it is compared with the input from the desired turning angle setter 38. Then, when the direction is changed to the left from the reference azimuth by a set angle θ ₁ (for example, 45°), a turning stop command signal is issued from the comparison circuit 39 and the turning is stopped.

When the left turning stroke b of the set angle is completed, a reverse right turning command is issued from the desired turning angle setting device 38.
The gear shift lever 17 is automatically operated to the set reverse position and the vehicle moves to the reverse turning stroke c. Also, at this time, the desired turning angle setting device 38 cancels the left turning angle setting and automatically sets the right turning angle setting that has been set in advance. Also in this step, the deviation between the memorized reference orientation and the actual detected orientation is compared with the set angle in the comparator circuit 39, and the set angle θ is calculated from the reference orientation.
When the direction is changed by _{2 degrees} (for example, 90 degrees), the gear shift lever 17 is automatically operated to the neutral position and the aircraft stops.

With the above, one automatic turning stroke is completed and the automatic turning control mechanism is reset. Then, when the operator operates the speed change lever 17 to switch to forward movement, the next automatic follow-up reaping travel stroke d is started.

However, it is also possible to automate the transition to step d.

In the embodiment, the magnetic compass 22 is used to detect the absolute direction of the aircraft relative to the ground, but a gyro compass may also be used.

As described in detail in the embodiments above, in the present invention, the final orientation of the aircraft after automatic direction change is determined based on the reference orientation stored at the start of the direction change, so that the final orientation can be determined with less error. Summer.

In other words, generally, the direction change of the aircraft in the field is performed in multiple stages by combining forward and backward movement and left and right turns.One way to automate this is to accumulate the direction change angles at each stage and determine the final direction. However, in this case, the direction control errors at each stage will be accumulated and appear as a large error in the final heading, and this final error will increase as the number of stages of direction changes increases. It's increasing.

However, in the present invention, no matter how the direction change is performed in stages, the final direction is determined based on the memorized direction at the start of the direction change.
Control errors only appeared during the direction change in the final stage, and overall it became possible to perform correct automatic direction changes with fewer control errors.

In addition, the reference orientation at the time of automatic direction change is the detected direction at the time when the direction change is started, that is, the aircraft direction at or near the time when the previous work run is completed, and is the aircraft direction at the time when the previous work run is completed, and is the direction at which the direction change is started. It indicates the direction near the end of the work trace, so by memorizing this direction and using it as the reference direction, when moving on to the next work run after changing direction, you can refer to the previous work trace. It became possible to start the next work from the appropriate direction following the end of the process.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show an embodiment of the mobile agricultural machine with an automatic direction change mechanism according to the present invention, in which FIG. 1 is a schematic side view of the entire combine harvester, FIG. 2 is a plan view schematically showing the front part and running part of the combine harvester, and FIG. The figure is a vertical front view of the magnetic compass, Figure 4 is a perspective view of the magnetic compass, Figure 5 is a block diagram of the automatic direction change control mechanism, Figure 6 is a signal waveform diagram of each circuit part, and Figure 7 is a diagram of the automatic direction change control mechanism. It is a schematic plan view which shows the direction change form of a combine. 22...Compass, 36...Memory circuit, 38...
...Setting device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A compass 22 that detects the absolute direction of the aircraft relative to the ground.
It is equipped with a circuit 36 that stores the detected orientation, and a mechanism that automatically controls the direction change of the aircraft at the angle set by the setting device 38. The memory circuit 36
A mobile agricultural machine with an automatic direction change mechanism, characterized in that the memorized direction is stored at a set angle and the final direction of the machine body is determined as a reference direction for changing direction at a set angle. 2. Claim 1, characterized in that the direction change of the aircraft is performed in a plurality of stages, and in each stage of direction change, the direction change is performed at a set angle based on the memorized azimuth. Mobile agricultural machinery as described in Section. 3. The mobile agricultural machine according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the compass 22 is a magnetic compass that utilizes geomagnetism.