Development of an intelligent yield monitor for grain combine harvester

Abstract

An intelligent yield monitor for grain combine harvester was developed. The harvested crop was wheat, and the harvesting combine used to equip the monitor was JL1065, a typical machine with 4-meter swath width in northern China. The monitor can collect four analog signals, grain flow, grain moisture content, grain temperature, and header up/down signal, and two digital signals, ground speed and elevator speed. Two digital signals were sensed by Hall effect elements. The monitor can also synchronously receive DGPS signal. A liquid crystal display and a touch screen were integrated as an I/O interface. Field tests showed a linear relationship between actual yield and the output of the yield monitor. The error between measurement and prediction was less than 3%. It is concluded that the developed intelligent yield monitor is practical. © 2005 by International Federation for Information Processing.