Abstract:
A method of and arrangement for monitoring the collection of plant material includes the following steps and apparatus for executing these steps, respectively: collecting plant location and attribute data with respect to plant material, before and/or during and/or after harvesting the plant material, providing the plant location and attribute data on a collecting vehicle adapted to collect the harvested plant material, moving the collecting vehicle to the harvested plant material based on the plant location data, collecting the harvested plant material, sensing attribute data of the harvested plant material before and/or during and/or after the collecting, and comparing the sensed attribute data with the plant attribute data and generating an output dependent on the result of the comparison.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 to European Patent Application EP 15185018.7, filed Sep. 14, 2015, and titled “METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT FOR MONITORING THE COLLECTION OF PLANT MATERIAL,” the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. 
       FIELD 
       [0002]    The present disclosure pertains to a method and arrangement for monitoring the collection of plant material. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0003]    In forestry, trees growing in a forest are in many cases felled, delimbed and also cut to a desired length or into logs into with a so-called harvester, which is a self-propelled vehicle. The logs remain on the worksite, either on the position where they have been ejected by the harvester head during cutting or are deposited on one or more piles, which are optionally sorted according to defined parameters like intended use of the logs, and are collected subsequently with a so-called forwarder. The forwarder is also self-propelled and has an arm for grabbing one or more logs at a time and a loading space into which the collected logs are deposited. Once the loading space is sufficiently filled, the forwarder drives to a location adjacent a road and deposits the logs on a single or multiple piles, in particular sorted according to the intended use of the logs, from which they are later collected by trucks and transported to the next processing stage (saw mill, paper factory, etc.). 
         [0004]    Recently, some electronic assistance has been proposed for the operator of the harvester and the forwarder. For example, according to U.S. Pat. No. 8,407,157 B2, the harvester can collect data about the location of the harvester when felling and processing trees, which is assumed to be located close to the location of the logs, together with material identifier data collected by a sensor to identify the type of the wood and data on the dimensions and weight. These data can be wirelessly transmitted to the forwarder. The forwarder can thus plan an optimal path to the logs in the forest and to the deposition location at the road, and be manually or automatically guided along the planned path. In another embodiment, the mentioned data are physically referenced on the logs, e.g., by RFID tag or a barcode, and read by the forwarder once sufficiently close to the logs. Similar path planning systems are described in WO 2014/122364 A1 and P. Flisberg et al., “Optimization Based Planning Tools for Routing of Forwarders at Harvest Areas,”  Can. J. For. Res.  37:2153-2163 (2007). 
         [0005]    WO 2012/069698 A1 proposes to send data about the harvested trees, which can be collected among others by means of a camera, to a central server, allowing a user to remotely check the felling operation in the forest. 
         [0006]    The forwarder can be provided with a scale integrated into its arm, in order to sense the weight of the logs loaded into the loading space. The weight data can thus be recorded, together with additional data regarding the logs, in particular their number. Such information can, like corresponding information on the felled trees, be wirelessly sent to the forest owner (cf. for example brochure “Steuersysteme für Forstmaschinen der E-Serie, John Deere, print remark 4-2011). The number of the collected logs needs presently to be manually input by the operator. 
         [0007]    EP 1 902 611 A2 describes an agricultural harvesting system sensing parameters of crop during harvesting and storing this material in a container with a traceability device, like a RDID chip or barcode. Information on the location of the container and its traceability device is stored on the harvester for later accession of the container with the crop. 
         [0008]    U.S. Pat. No. 6,772,546 B2, also discussed in US 2006/0096667 A1, describes a transponder chip to be fixed to a log. An operator is equipped with a portable transmit and receive unit and writes data regarding the log onto the chip. When the logs are collected and loaded on a transport vehicle, the data of all chips can be read to provide a loading list of the vehicle, which is read at the factory gate receiving the logs and compared there with an announced list. 
       SUMMARY 
       [0009]    Collection of the logs takes place in an environment that is not always easy to oversee for the operator of the forwarder, since the logs may lie distributed over the ground between smaller plants like shrubs or in water puddles or small ponds, under snow or in invisible areas at night. It is thus possible that some logs are not collected, but overseen and thus remain forgotten in the forest. Also, manual input of the collected logs is not always entirely accurate, since the forwarder operator can forget this input or by accident input more or less logs than actually collected. Further on, additional errors can occur, like collection of logs in a different forest as intended, errors during data collection at the tree harvester, and logs can be stolen. Similar problems can also occur when agricultural material, like baled grass or straw or other crop, is left on a field and later collected. The mentioned prior art is not capable of recovering such errors. All this affects the working time, fuel consumption, operator stress, communication, tracks and ground compaction in the forest and thus overall reduces the productivity of the forest site. 
         [0010]    Thus, there is a need for an improved method and arrangement for collecting harvested material. 
         [0011]    A method of and an arrangement for monitoring the collection of plant material comprises the following steps and means for executing these steps, respectively: on a worksite, collecting plant location and attribute data suited for a later identification of the respective plant material, before and/or during and/or after harvesting the plant material on the worksite; providing the plant location and attribute data on a collecting vehicle adapted to collect the harvested plant material; moving the collecting vehicle to the harvested plant material on the worksite, based on the plant location data; collecting the harvested plant material in a loading space of the collecting vehicle; sensing attribute data of the harvested plant material before and/or during the collecting; comparing the sensed attribute data with the plant attribute data and generating an output dependent on the result of the comparison, and presenting the result of the comparison to an operator of the collecting vehicle via a user interface including displaying an error message if the comparison reveals that the stored plant attribute data and the sensed plant attribute data do not match. 
         [0012]    In other words, plant location and attribute data are collected before, during or after harvesting (preferably within a chronological context with the harvesting step), in order to determine the location of the plant material (which is subsequently to be collected by means of a collecting vehicle), and at the same time or separately therefrom (preferably also within a chronological context with the harvesting step), attribute data for the plant material are collected or sensed. These attribute data can be manually input and/or selected by the operator of the harvester and/or sensed by an appropriate sensor and/or be based on previously stored information, like an electronic map indicating position and/or size of the plants or trees. These attribute data are suited for a later identification of the respective plant material. Both plant location and attribute data are transferred to the collecting vehicle. The collecting vehicle is automatically or manually guided to the harvested plant material, based upon the plant location data (and possibly upon other control data, like attributes of the plant material to be collected if the collection vehicle just has to collect plant material with one or more predefined attribute, but no other plant material) and collects the harvested plant material there. Before or during collecting the plant material (preferably within a chronological context with the collecting step), attribute data are sensed. This can be performed by manually input or selection by the operator of the collecting vehicle and/or by sensing by an appropriate sensor. The now input or sensed attribute data are compared with the known plant attribute data. The result of the comparison is outputted. The result of the comparison can be presented to an operator of the collecting vehicle via a user interface and optionally wirelessly submitted to a remote location or server. 
         [0013]    In this way, the problems mentioned above can be avoided or at least reduced, since the output will indicate when an attribute of the collected plant material does not confirm to an expected plant attribute, thus indicating that an error has occurred. The location and attribute data can be included into a database representing the inventory of the site after harvesting. The operation (decisions/planning/optimizations/movements) of the collecting vehicle can be controlled using this database, which can also be updated during the collection and thus always be kept up to date. If several collecting vehicles are working at the same time on a work site, they can use jointly the same database and update it in real time, such that all information used is always actual and correct. 
         [0014]    Such an attribute can be the number, size, weight, color, type, ingredients of the plant material and identification data of an electronically or optically readable marker provided during harvesting on the plant material and/or a container thereof. For example, if the number of collected plants (e.g., logs) is less than the expected number indicated by the plant attribute data, the output can indicate this fact and preferably also the difference. The operator of the collecting vehicle can thus search for missing logs or, if he or she does not find them, report stolen logs to the forest owner or to the police. On the other hand, if more logs are collected than expected, this can be an indication that the collecting vehicle is not collecting at the correct location or that an error has occurred on the harvester. Thus, such errors can be corrected. At the end of the collection operation, correct figures on the collected plant material can be reported to the forest owner. In addition, collected plant material and quantities (all attribute data) can be cross-checked against attributes that were collected during harvesting and/or data collected during an unloading/deposit phase in which the plant material is loaded off the collecting vehicle and thus errors can be indicated and corrected. 
         [0015]    The attribute data can concern one plant or a plurality of plants or one part of one plant or parts of one plant or parts of a plurality of plants. In the context of tree harvesting, the attribute data can thus concern one entire tree, parts (i.e. one log) of one entire tree, a number of trees or parts (i.e. logs) of a number of trees. An attribute can hence be separately assigned to each tree or to each log, or one attribute is used for a number of logs from one tree or from a number of trees. 
         [0016]    In one embodiment, the plant material is wood and the collecting vehicle is a self-propelled forwarder with a loading arm for grabbing one or more logs at a time and a loading space into which the collected logs are deposited. In another embodiment, the plant material is agricultural material like grass, straw, cotton or grain and the collecting vehicle is a vehicle for collecting the plant material that has been baled or filled in a container by a harvesting machine, which might be a (cotton or straw) baler or a combine. 
         [0017]    The plant location and/or attribute data can be transmitted to the collecting vehicle by means of a wireless data transmission or a physical data carrier like a memory chip. 
         [0018]    The plant data collection device or assembly can be provided on a harvesting vehicle and/or on a separate vehicle like a robot or drone or carried by a person. Analogously, the sensor for sensing the attribute can be provided on the collecting vehicle and/or on a separate vehicle like a robot or drone or carried by a person. 
         [0019]    In one embodiment, a method of monitoring the collection of a plant material includes, on a worksite, collecting plant location and attribute data suited for a later identification of the respective plant material, before, during, and/or after harvesting the plant material on the worksite, providing the plant location and the attribute data to a collecting vehicle configured to collect the harvested plant material, moving the collecting vehicle to the harvested plant material on the worksite, based on the plant location data, collecting the harvested plant material in a loading space of the collecting vehicle, sensing attribute data of the harvested plant material before and/or during the collecting, comparing the sensed attribute data with the plant attribute data and generating an output dependent on the result of the comparison, and presenting the result of the comparison to an operator of the collecting vehicle via a user interface including displaying an error message if the comparison reveals that the stored plant attribute data and the sensed plant attribute data do not match. 
         [0020]    In another embodiment, an arrangement for monitoring the collection of plant material includes a plant data collection assembly configured to collect plant location and attribute data suited for a later identification of the respective plant material before, during, and/or after harvesting the plant material on a worksite, and a data transfer device configured to transfer the plant location and attribute data to a collecting vehicle that is configured to move to the harvested plant material on the worksite based on the plant location data and to collect the harvested plant material in a loading space of the collecting vehicle. At least one sensor is configured to sense attribute data of the harvested plant material before and/or during the collecting, a data processor is configured to compare the sensed attribute data with the plant attribute data and to generate an output dependent on the result of the comparison, and a user interface is configured to present the result of the comparison to an operator of the collecting vehicle and to display an error message if the comparison reveals that the stored plant attribute data and the sensed plant attribute data do not match. 
         [0021]    Other aspects of the disclosure will become apparent by consideration of the detailed description and accompanying drawings 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0022]      FIG. 1  shows a side view of a tree harvester. 
           [0023]      FIG. 2  shows a side view of a forwarder. 
           [0024]      FIG. 3  shows a schematic diagram of the harvester electronics. 
           [0025]      FIG. 4  shows a schematic diagram of the forwarder electronics. 
           [0026]      FIG. 5  shows a flow diagram associated with the operation of the harvester during tree harvesting. 
           [0027]      FIG. 6  shows a flow diagram associated with the operation of the forwarder during log collection. 
           [0028]      FIG. 7  shows a screen display available to the forwarder operator before collection logs. 
           [0029]      FIG. 8  shows a screen display available to the forwarder operator during collection logs. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0030]      FIG. 1  shows a side view of a forestry harvester  10 . The harvester  10  comprises a frame  12  supported on wheels  18 . The frame supports an operator station  20  and a boom  14  with a harvester head  16  on its outer end. During operation, an operator sitting in the operator station  20  drives the harvester  10  into a forest and controls the harvester head  16  to grab a tree, cut the tree off the ground, to lay the tree down in a controlled manner, to delimb it and to cut it into logs of desired length. In other embodiments, delimbing and/or cutting can performed manually or by separate, suitable machines. 
         [0031]    In  FIG. 2 , a forwarder  30  is shown. The forwarder  30  comprises an articulated frame with a first part  32  and a second part  34 , both supported on wheels  36 ,  38 , respectively. The first part  34  supports an arm  40  having a grabber  42  on its outer end. The arm  40  with the grabber  42  is shown in a stowed position in which they are located in a loading space  44  surrounded by posts  46 . The second part  34  of the frame supports an operator station  48  and an engine compartment  50 . During operation, an operator sitting in the operator station drives the forwarder  30  sufficiently close to logs to be collected (during normal driving on roads and in the forest, the operator station  48  is rotated by 180° around the vertical axis, compared with the operation position shown in  FIG. 2 , such that the forwarder  30  then drives to the left side in  FIG. 2 ) and controls the arm  40  and the grabber  42  to take up one or more logs at a time and to deposit them into the loading space  44 . Once the loading space  44  is sufficiently filled, the forwarder  30  is driven to another place, generally close to a road, where it deposits the logs that are finally collected with a truck and brought to the next processing stage. A scale  52  is provided between the grabber  42  and the arm  40  to weigh the collected logs. Instead of or additional to sensing the load of the arm  40  with the scale  52 , it would be possible to sense the load in the loading space  44  with a scale (not shown) between frame  32  and the bottom of the loading space  44 , and thus to sense the weight increments when logs are loaded into the loading space  44 . The scaling equipment can be located anywhere in or outside the forwarder  30 , its arm  40 , grabber  42  and/or its hydraulics. 
         [0032]      FIG. 3  shows a schematical diagram indicating some parts of the electronics  100  of the harvester  10 . The harvester electronics  100  comprises a data processor  108  that is connected via a bus  105  to a user interface  101 , a location determining receiver  102  receiving GNSS signals from a global positioning system like GPS, Glonass and/or Galileo, a storage device  106  (memory), one or more sensor(s)  104  for collecting one or more harvested material attributes, a marker  111  and to a wireless communications device  110 . 
         [0033]      FIG. 4  shows a schematical diagram indicating some parts of the electronics  112  of the forwarder  30 . The forwarder electronics  112  comprises a data processor  114  that is connected via a bus  116  to a user interface  118 , a location determining receiver  120  receiving GNSS signals from a global positioning system like GPS, Glonass and/or Galileo, a guidance module  122 , a storage device  128  (memory), one or more sensor(s)  124  for collecting one or more harvested material attributes and to a wireless communications device  126 . 
         [0034]      FIG. 5  shows a flow diagram regarding the operation of the harvester  10  during tree harvesting. After start in step  500 , the harvester  10  is driven by its operator to a worksite in a forest (step  502 ). In step  504 , a tree is felled, delimbed and cut into logs of desired size. In step  506 , the location of the harvester  10  (which is sufficiently close to the logs to find them afterwards) and/or the location of its boom  14  and/or the orientation of the boom  14  (which allows to estimate the location of the logs sufficiently exact) is stored, based on the location determined by the location-determining receiver  102 , in the storage device  106  (which can be within a machine data or controller box), together with attribute data sensed by the harvested material attribute sensor  104 . Such attribute data can concern the number of the logs, their size (diameter and/or length), weight, color (sensed by means of an optical sensor like a camera with an image processing system), type (indicating the species of the tree, like oak or pine etc., identified also for example by a camera with an image processing system) and/or ingredients (like cellulose and/or fiber content, which can be sensed with a NIR sensor). The material attribute sensor  104  thus detects one or more properties of the tree that can be helpful for later identification of the tree or logs resulting therefrom. The data processor  108 , the storage device  106  and the material attribute sensor  104  act as a plant data collection device or assembly. 
         [0035]    Additionally to or instead of recording the mentioned, sensed attribute data in the storage device  106 , the data processor  108  can generate unique identification data, like a number, and write it onto a marker  111  that is fixed to a log, or read pre-stored data from a marker  111  of a supply of markers  111  and fix the marker to the log. The marker  111  can operate electronically, like a RFID chip, or be an optical marker, like a barcode. These identification data are also stored in the storage device  106 . 
         [0036]    After step  506 , step  508  follows in which the harvester operator is prompted via the user interface  101  to input whether all trees to be felled have been felled or/and the entire harvest area has been covered. If the response is no, in which the harvester  10  drives, if necessary, to the next tree, and step  504  follows again. Otherwise, step  512  is executed, in which the collected plant location and attribute data from storage device  106  are sent, via the wireless communications device  110 , to the wireless communications device  126  on the forwarder  30  and stored in the forwarder electronics  112  in storage device  128 . Finally, the harvester  10  drives back to its home base (step  514 ). 
         [0037]      FIG. 6  shows a flow diagram indicating the operation of the forwarder  30  when collecting the logs that have been harvested according to the diagram of  FIG. 5 . After start in step  600 , in optional step  602  a work plan (which can be a path plan, selection of plant material with specific attribute data, cost plan, time plan, optimization of different aspects) for the forwarder  30  can be generated, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,407,157 B2, and subsequently displayed to the operator via user interface  118 , as shown in  FIG. 7 . In the following step  604 , the forwarder  30  is driven to the worksite where the logs harvested according to  FIG. 5  are still lying on the ground. Step  604  can be performed entirely manually by the operator of the forwarder  30  or the operator can follow the path plan from step  602  which is shown on the user interface  118 , or the forwarder  30  drives automatically along the planned path. In step  606 , the arm  40  and grabber  42  are operated to take up one or more logs at one time from the ground, whereby the arm  40  and grabber can be entirely manually controlled or partly or fully automated, for example using a camera  54  and an image processing system on the forwarder  30  or/and different types of sensors. After step  606  or  608 , the collected log(s) are deposited in the loading space  44 . 
         [0038]    In step  608 , one or more attributes of the logs taken up in step  606  are detected by a suitable harvested material attribute sensor  124 , which is adapted to sense attribute data of the harvested plant material. Such a sensor  124  can be the camera  54 , detecting the size of the log(s), the scale  52  detecting their weight, or a reader for a marker  111 . A display can be shown to the user as indicated in  FIG. 8 . 
         [0039]    In the next step  610 , the sensed attribute(s) is or are compared with the attribute(s) that have been received in step  512 . The data processor  114  thus acts as a comparison device adapted to compare the sensed attribute data with the plant attribute data and to generate an output dependent on the result of the comparison. 
         [0040]    The comparison in step  610  can check for identity of the attributes, in particular if unambiguous data like numbers or alphanumeric codes are assigned as attribute data to the plant material or logs, or for similarity of the expected and sensed attribute data within a predetermined tolerance frame, in particular if sensed data, like weight and/or length and/or location and/or orientation data are stored and compared. In this case, it would be possible to use a model considering the environmental conditions that prevailed between harvest and collection to encounter for weight loss or shrinking due to evaporation of water from the collected plants. If, for example the accumulated weight of all logs on a worksite is stored in step  506 , this accumulated weight is also sensed in step  608  and compared in step  610 . On the other hand, all weights or dimensions (length and diameter) of all logs on the worksite can be stored in step  506  and compared in step  610 , using a list or table from which collected logs are subsequently cancelled. Such a list or table could be a work site inventory which is automatically updated during the plant material collection and can be used later for inventory control purposes etc. 
         [0041]    If the attributes match, step  612  follows, in which the arm  40  and grabber  42  are moved towards the next log(s), followed again by step  606 . The successful comparison can also be indicated on user interface  118 . On the other hand, if step  610  reveals that the attributes do not match, step  614  follows, in which an error message is given to the operator on the user interface  118 , and/or sent to a remote location or server using the wireless communications device  126 , in order to inform the forest owner directly or via the server to which he has access. The operator can then take appropriate measures. For example, an attribute indicates a different type (species), size or weight of the log(s), the operator can check whether he has entered the correct worksite. If the number or total weight of logs collected at a particular location is less than expected, the operator can search for missing logs. Once the situation has been cleared, step  612  can follow. At the end of the collection operation, information on the total collected logs and differences between expected (from step  512 ) and collected plant attributes (from step  608 ) can be submitted to the forest owner directly or via the server by means of the wireless communications device  126 . 
         [0042]    It should be mentioned that numerous modifications can be made to the described embodiment. For example, the harvester  10  could be an agricultural harvesting machine, like a baler or a combine, depositing the harvested crop in bales or containers on a field. The forwarder  30  would then be a collecting vehicle, like a tractor, taking up the harvested crop. 
         [0043]    Further, the attributes of the logs do not need to be collected during the harvesting process as indicated in step  506 , but can be collected before this step or later, for example by a person walking through the forest and collecting manually information about the standing trees or the felled stems or logs. For this purpose, a robot or drone can be used. In this case, the trees can be felled and/or cut into logs manually, not using a harvester  10 . 
         [0044]    Also, the attributes of the logs do not need to be collected exactly during loading them into the loading space  44  (steps  606 ,  608 ), but before this step (for example, using the camera  54  to identify the logs when still lying on the ground) or when they are already in the loading space  44 , for example by a RFID reader which is mounted sufficiently close to the loading space  44  to read RFID chips fixed to the logs or hand-held by the forwarder operator. Step  608  can also be performed by a person walking through the forest and collecting manually information about the logs before collection. For this purpose, a robot or drone can be used. 
         [0045]    Instead of (or additional to) sending the location and attribute data from the harvester  10  to the forwarder  30  via the wireless communications devices  110 ,  126 , these data can be written into a movable storage device, like a memory card or stick, and physically transferred to the forwarder  39  and be transferred there into the storage device  128 . In other embodiments, a data transfer device can include any suitable or future developed system for transferring data, including, but not limited to a wireless communication device (e.g., Bluetooth, local area network (LAN), Wi-Fi, wireless Internet, etc.) a wired communication device (e.g., a serial cable, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable, etc.), and/or a physical communication device (e.g., a memory stick, a flash memory card, a USB flash drive, etc.). 
         [0046]    Various features and advantages of the disclosure are set forth in the following claims.