Patent ID: 7400957

Claim:
A process for automatically steering an agricultural machine, equipped with a steering device, on a surface of a field on which a cut swath of crop is lying that is to be processed, comprising the following steps: a) taking a picture, with a picture taking camera, of an entire width of a region of the field surface lying in front of the machine and including at least one cut swath of crop; b) generating a pixel data file from a picture signal from the camera; c) generating texture information with respect to the texture of the surroundings of the pixels of the pixel data file; d) classifying pixels of the pixel data file under consideration of the texture information, in order to generate a binary information, whether or not the particular pixels are to be assigned to the cut swath of crop that is to be processed; e) generating a steering signal based on the results of the classifications, and; f) repositioning the steering device of the agricultural machine according to the steering signal, so that the machine is steered automatically along the cut swath of crop to be processed.