JPS6239968B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a system for automatically controlling the handling depth of a combine harvester that automatically reaps and threshes various grain culms such as rice and wheat.

Recently, small-sized combine harvesters suitable for small-scale agriculture in Japan have been developed and are gradually being used for general use, but the following structures are generally used.

That is, FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view mainly showing the part of such a combine harvester that performs reaping or threshing, and in which the weeding bodies 2a to 2e supported by rod-shaped weeding rods 1a to 1e protrude forward and are fixed. As the combine moves forward, the grass branches 2a~
Grain culms pushed apart by 2e are divided into cutting rods 1a to 1e.
The grain is harvested by a clipper-like reaping section 3 installed just below the combine, and transported above the combine by a chain-like culm conveying device 4. After being supplied to the grain conveying chain 5, the grain is inserted into a threshing section 6 by its rotational movement, and the ears are threshed by a rotating handling cylinder 7 similar to a general threshing machine.

In addition, when threshing, if the relative relationship of the ears to the handling barrel 7 is too deep or too shallow, complete threshing will not be achieved. A spike sensor SFS and a spike sensor SFD are provided to detect the tip and root of the spike, and depending on the detection situation, the feed adjustment unit 8, which will be described in detail later, is controlled, and the grain culm is supplied to the grain culm conveyance chain 5. adjusting the situation.

In addition, in order to detect the presence or absence of grain culm supply to the threshing section 6, a grain culm sensor SFF is provided on the same line as the ear tip sensor SFS and the ear head sensor SFD, and the harvested grain culm between the cutting rods 1a to 1c is provided. Grain culm conveying device 4
An auxiliary grain culm conveying device 9 similar to the same device 4 is provided for the purpose of transferring the grains to the grains. Incidentally, reference numerals 10 and 11 are rotary wheels provided with protrusions for raking grain culms toward the respective grain culm conveying devices 4 and 9.

FIG. 2 shows details of the grain culm conveyance device 4 and the supply adjustment section 8, A is a plan view, B is a side view, and the chain 21 of the grain culm conveyance device 4 and the chain 22 of the supply adjustment section 8 are Each of the chains 21 and 2 is stretched around pulleys 23 to 26, and moves in the direction of the arrow as the pulleys 23 to 26 rotate.
Chain 21,
There are gripping rods 27-29 pressed against 22.

Further, the supply adjustment section 8 is connected to the shaft 3 of the support base 30.
1 is rotatably supported by a bearing 32,
As the rod 34 of the hydraulic cylinder 33 moves in and out, it rotates about the shaft 31 as shown by the arrow.

Incidentally, the grain culm held by the chain 21 and the clamping rod 27 on the pulley 23 side of the grain culm conveying device 4 is
The gripping rod 27 is opened at the end on the side of the supply adjustment section 8, but is received while being gripped by the chain 22 of the supply adjustment section 8 and the gripping rod 29, reaches the pulley 26 side, and then transferred to the grain culm conveying device 4 again. It is designed to be passed to a chain 21 and a clamping rod 28.

Therefore, as shown in FIG.
When the grain culms 41A to 41D, which are conveyed in the direction of the arrow, are delivered in the supply adjustment section 8 without changing the part held by the chain 21, The grain culm is sent out from the grain conveying device 4 with the length L ₁ to the tip being constant, and is transferred to the grain culm conveying chain 5 in Fig. 1.
supplied to

On the other hand, when the feed adjustment section 8 is tilted to the state shown in FIG. Therefore, length L ₁
Here, the grain culm is reduced to L ₂ and becomes a grain culm 41D having a short grain culm length L ₂ and is supplied to the grain culm conveying chain 5 in FIG.

That is, if the grain is supplied to the grain conveying chain 5 in the state shown in FIG. 3A and then inserted into the threshing section 6,
In contrast to the deep treatment in which the ears are inserted all the way to the back, in the state shown in Figure 3B, the ears are shallow treatment in which the ears are not inserted in the depths, so the length L ₁ of the harvested grain culm 41A is By adjusting the inclination of the supply adjusting section 8 using the hydraulic cylinder 33 shown in FIG. 2B, the depth and shallowness of the tip inserted into the threshing section 6 can be controlled, and appropriate threshing can be performed.

In addition, in order to drive the hydraulic cylinder 33, a control device is separately provided, and automatic control is performed to achieve an appropriate handling depth based on the detected force of the ear tip sensor SFS or grain culm sensor SFF. There is.

This control device is activated on the condition that the grain culm sensor SFF is turned on, that is, the supply of grain culms to the threshing unit 6 is started, and when the ear head sensor SFD is turned off, that is, when the grain does not come into contact with the grain head sensor SFD, the grain is treated as shallow. The control output is given to the solenoid valve to extend the rod 34 of the hydraulic cylinder 33, and the supply adjustment section 8 is controlled to the state shown in FIG. When the tip comes into contact with both sensors SFD and SFS, it is determined that the handling is too serious, and a control output is given to the other solenoid valve to control rod 3.
4, and control the supply adjustment unit 8 to the state shown in Fig. 3B, and then turn off the tip sensor SFS and turn off the tip sensor.
The SFD is on, that is, the ears are kept in a state between the two sensors SFS and SFD, and the control according to the length of the grain culm ensures that the ears are always in the middle of the two sensors SFS and SFD at the appropriate handling depth. maintain.

However, since the length of the grain culm to be harvested varies greatly depending on the field, the allowable rotation range of the supply adjustment unit 8 is also set accordingly. When changing, control is repeated in the deep direction and shallow direction,
A phenomenon occurs in which the control operation is performed to the fullest of the permissible rotational range, and in such a case, there is a drawback that, due to the relationship with the follow-up speed, etc., ears are left untreated.

In addition, detection errors may occur depending on the state of contact of the ear with the ear tip sensor SFS and the ear head sensor SFD, and there are also drawbacks such as unhandled items due to unnecessary control operations.

The present invention has an object of essentially eliminating such drawbacks of the conventional art, and includes a feed adjustment sensor that detects the adjustment status of the feed adjustment section, and the handling depth during advancement over a certain section is determined by the feed adjustment sensor. After detection,
In addition to finding the average value of the handling depth while moving forward in a certain section, a new average value is sequentially obtained by adding the handling depth in advancing after a certain section to the average value, and after the certain section, the above average value is calculated. The present invention provides an extremely rational method for controlling the processing depth of a combine harvester, which controls the processing depth mainly based on a new average value that is updated sequentially. .

The details of the present invention will be explained below with reference to FIG. 4 and subsequent figures showing embodiments.

FIG. 4 shows how to control the supply adjustment section 8 according to the detected forces from the above-mentioned ear tip sensor SFS to grain culm sensor SFF and the supply adjustment sensor S, which will be described later.
It is a block diagram of a control unit CNT that generates a control output for the hydraulic cylinder 33, and includes a main processor CPU such as a microprocessor, a first memory ROM that stores instructions for operating conditions, and
A second memory RAM is provided to temporarily store various data when the processor CPU operates in accordance with this instruction, and data is exchanged between them via the bus.

In addition, the detected force from the ear tip sensor SFS to grain culm sensor SFF and the detected force from the supply adjustment sensor S undergo waveform shaping, level matching, etc. in the input circuit IF, and then become input, and are sent via the input/output circuit PIA. However, control outputs for the electromagnetic valves MV ₁ and MV ₂ for driving the hydraulic cylinder 33 are sent out via the input/output circuit PIA and the driver DR.

The processor CPU is activated on the condition that the grain culm sensor SFF is turned on, that is, the supply of grain culms to the threshing unit 6 is started, and when the ear head sensor SFD is turned off, that is, the ear has not yet contacted the ear head sensor SFD, it is determined that the grain has been treated lightly. Then, a control output is applied to the solenoid valve MV ₁ to extend the rod 34 of the hydraulic cylinder 33, and as shown in FIG.
The supply adjustment unit 8 is controlled to the state of
Both SFD and tip sensor SFS are turned on, i.e.
When the tip comes into contact with both sensors SFD and SFS, it is determined that the handling is too serious, and a control output is given to the solenoid valve MV ₂ to retract the rod 34, and the supply adjustment section 8 is controlled to the state shown in Fig. 3B. , the tip sensor SFS is off, the tip sensor SFD is on, that is, both sensors SFS,
The grain is kept in a state between SFD and controlled according to the length of the grain culm to maintain an appropriate handling depth where the ears are always in the middle of both sensors SFS and SFD. Note that the above control operation is the same as that of the conventional one.

On the other hand, the supply adjustment sensor S is connected to the shaft 31 of the support base 30, as shown in FIG. It has become a thing.

In other words, the supply adjustment sensor S consists of a light-emitting element such as a light-emitting diode and a photo sensor placed opposite each other.
It is preferable to arrange a plurality of combinations of light-receiving elements such as transistors, and to continue the optical path between the light-emitting element and the light-receiving element using a rotary perforated disk having through holes drilled in a code shape. The output of each light-receiving element corresponding to the rotation angle of the rotating porous disk is used as an encoded signal of a predetermined number of bits.

Therefore, the length of the grain culm to be supplied to the grain conveying chain 5 is determined based on the adjustment status of the supply adjustment section 8 based on the detection force of the supply adjustment sensor S, and the length of the grain culm to be supplied to the grain conveyance chain 5 is determined based on the adjustment status of the supply adjustment section 8. The handling depth at 6 can also be detected.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the control operation of the present invention based on the detected force of the supply adjustment sensor S mentioned above. In advance, a command instructing the operation shown in the figure is stored in the first memory ROM of FIG. The data is stored, and the processor CPU performs arithmetic and control operations accordingly.

As shown in Figure 5, when the harvesting of the grain culm begins as the combine moves forward, the grain culm sensor
SFF is turned on, and with SFF ON, "certain area cutting" such as a fixed distance or fixed time is performed, and the cutting depth is automatically controlled according to the control operation described above. Until the end of the section, the detection force d ₁ to dn from the supply adjustment sensor S
are sequentially stored in two memory RAMs.

Upon “end of a certain period”, the processor CPU performs addition “d ₁ + d ₂ ... dn = D ₀ ”, and if the judgment “has been added n times” is YES, the processor CPU adds the data to the second memory.
Assuming that a predetermined address in the RAM is "Ms=0", that is, its contents have been cleared, the calculation "D ₀ /n=m ₀ " is performed, and the detection power d ₁
After finding the average value m ₀ of ~dn, “m ₀ or m ₁ →
Ms”, the average value m ₀ is stored at a predetermined address Ms.

That is, from the above, the average value of the processing depth during the advance of "fixed section reaping" has been determined as m ₀ .

Next, check that the grain culm sensor is “SFF ON” and that the specified address “Ms≠0”, that is, the average value m ₀ is stored as the content, and then
Depth control is performed centering on the contents of a predetermined address "Ms."

In addition, the contents of the predetermined address Ms, that is, the average value
For handling depth control centered on m ₀ , the control range is determined in advance as a specified tolerance value in the deep handling direction and shallow handling direction, and when this is set as ±l,
This is done only in the range of m ₀ ±l.

The above control operation eliminates handling depth control to an unnecessary extent, and also
Erroneous control due to detection errors of the SFS and head sensor SFD can be stopped within the specified tolerance ±l, and by keeping the tolerance ±l appropriate according to field conditions, the occurrence of unhandled items can be completely prevented. be prevented.

In addition, after performing the “handling depth control” mentioned above,
If "Ms = 0" and subsequent steps are repeated, and "Ms = 0" is NO, that is, the average value m ₀ has already been stored in the predetermined address Ms, the detection of the supply adjustment sensor S in the forward movement after "end of certain section" Powerful dn ₊₁ to “D0
+dn+ ₁ = D ₁ ”, and add this by “D ₁ /
(n+ ₁ )=m _{1 '} ', the contents of the predetermined address Ms are updated by "m ₀ or m ₁ →Ms", and the new average value m A predetermined address storing ₁ is used to control the processing depth centered on the contents of Ms within the range of ±l,
Repeat the above operations.

Note that the result of “Did it add n times?” is NO,
If "SFF ON" is also NO, it means that the grain culm has not been harvested, and the operation from the beginning is repeated, but
If "SFF ON" is YES, n-time additions have not been completed, so the process returns to "d ₁ +d ₂ + . . . dn=D ₀ ", and this process is repeated until n-time additions are completed.

Also, “SFF” after “m ₀ or m ₁ →Ms”
When "ON" is NO, it means that the reaping of the grain culm has been interrupted, and the process returns to "d ₁ + d ₂ +...dn=D ₀ ", and the calculation of the average value m ₀ or m ₁ is redone.

Therefore, the center value of handling depth control is smoothly updated according to the grain culm length, which changes depending on the grain culm growth condition and unevenness of the field, so that handling depth control can be performed in accordance with the actual situation. It will definitely be done.

In addition, the control unit CNT shown in FIG. 4 may be configured with a dedicated control circuit by combining various logic circuits without using the processor CPU, and various types may be used as the supply adjustment sensor S. etc., the configuration of the present invention can be arbitrarily modified depending on the conditions.

As is clear from the above explanation, according to the present invention, the handling depth is controlled based on the successively updated average value of the harvested grain culm length, and the control range is restricted, so that the handling depth can be significantly increased. This eliminates significant fluctuations and completely prevents the occurrence of unhandled items. Therefore, in a combine harvester that automatically reaps and threshes various grain culms, great effects such as an improvement in the threshing rate can be obtained.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic plan view of the combine harvester, Fig. 2 shows details of the grain culm conveying device and the feed adjustment section, A is a plan view, B is a side view, and Fig. 3 is a side view showing the operation of the feed adjustment section. Figure 4 is a block diagram of the control section, and Figure 5 is a block diagram of the control section.
The figure is a flowchart showing the control operation. CNT...Control unit, CPU...Processor, ROM
...First memory, RAM ...Second memory, S...
Supply adjustment sensor, MV ₁ , MV ₂ ... Solenoid valve, 6...
Threshing section, 8... Supply adjustment section, 22... Chain,
25, 26... Pulley, 29... Clamping rod, 30...
...Support stand, 31...Shaft, 32...Bearing, 33...
Hydraulic cylinder, 34...rod.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a combine harvester that automatically reaps and threshes grain culms as it moves forward, a feed adjustment system that detects the adjustment status of the supply adjustment section that adjusts the handling depth when feeding the harvested grain culms to the threshing section. a sensor, and a control section that calculates the detected force of the supply adjustment sensor and generates a control output for controlling the supply adjustment section, and calculates the average value of the handling depth during advancement in a certain section, and Sequentially obtain a new average value by adding the treatment depth in advance after a certain section to the average value, and after the certain section, the center is centered on the average value and the new average value that is updated sequentially. A combine harvester handling depth control method, which is characterized by controlling the handling depth as follows.