Patent ID: 11871703
Assignee: DEERE & COMPANY
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC A  B  G | IPC A  B  G

Claim 7:
8. A method of identifying and tracking a bale, the method comprising:
collecting crop material with a pick-up of a baler implement;
conveying the crop material from the pick-up into a baling chamber of the baler implement;
forming the crop material into a bale having a shape within the baling chamber;
wrapping the bale with a strand material using a knotter system of the baler implement to secure the shape of the bale, wherein the knotter system includes a component that moves between a standby position and a wrapping position while wrapping the bale with the strand material;
installing an identification tag onto the bale with a tag installer, wherein the identification tag is a radio frequency identification tag including data related to the identification tag;
receiving data from a bale sensor, with a baler implement controller, wherein the data is related to a characteristic of the bale;
receiving a knotter engagement signal from a knotter sensor indicating movement of the component;
emitting an interrogation signal from a reader for a predefined period of time in response to receiving the knotter engagement signal;
receiving the identification data related to the identification tag, with the reader, in response to the interrogation signal;
associating, with the baler implement controller, the data related to the characteristic of the bale with the identification data from the identification tag of the bale; and
communicating, with the baler implement controller, the associated data related to the bale and the identification data from the identification tag to a remote memory.