Patent ID: 9575210
Date: 2017-02-21
CPC Classifications: A01C,G01J,G01V

Claim:
1. A downpipe sensor system for single grain recognition of grains in a downpipe, the sensor system comprising: a transmitting unit and a receiving unit disposed at a spacing distance from one another and spanning a predefined measurement field in a downpipe interior, wherein light beams emitted by said transmitting unit traverse said downpipe interior to said receiving unit and the light beams are at least partially attenuated during a passage of a grain through the measurement field; said receiving unit having a receiving axis and being formed by a line element having a predefined number of receiving elements; said transmitting unit having one or more light-emitting diodes disposed in a line and a reflector element having an entry surface, an exit surface for the light beams, and a third surface being a reflection surface with a bulging wall for parallelization and total reflection of the light beams; wherein the light beams are emitted from said light-emitting diodes transversely to said receiving axis of said receiving unit and are subsequently guided into said reflector element via said entry surface, and are deflected by total reflection toward said exit surface via said reflection surface to form a light band of mutually parallel light beams, with said light band in said measurement field completely illuminating an entire said downpipe interior with an intensity of approximately even strength and entering said receiving unit parallel with said receiving axis thereof; and wherein an entire width of said downpipe interior and an entire width of said light band is continuously monitored via said line element during operation; and means connected to said receiving unit for recognizing areas of grains arranged in the light band; said transmitting unit being disposed in a first housing and said receiving unit being disposed in a second housing attached on opposite sides of the measurement field in respective first and second transparent openings of said downpipe along said receiving axis, said transmitting unit and said receiving unit each having a respective protective disk closing off a corresponding one of said transparent openings, said protective disk being smoothly aligned with said downpipe interior for preventing dirt accumulations.