초록 ▼

A method and apparatus for harvesting fruit determines the proportion of fruit in a mixture of products containing fruit and bodies foreign to the fruit by capturing at least one initial image of a surface of the mixture to be examined. The device then assigns to each image pixel of one of two extre

A method and apparatus for harvesting fruit determines the proportion of fruit in a mixture of products containing fruit and bodies foreign to the fruit by capturing at least one initial image of a surface of the mixture to be examined. The device then assigns to each image pixel of one of two extreme grey levels according to the initial grey level of the pixel relative to a set threshold and then records the number of pixels of at least one extreme grey level to determine a area ratio between areas occupied by fruit and foreign bodies in the image. The invention has particular application to the harvesting of fruit, berries and the like produced on trees or bushes grown in rows to use the calculated proportion of fruit to adapt at least one of the functioning parameters of the machine.

대표청구항 ▼

[ Having thus described the invention, what is claimed is:] [4.] A method of harvesting agricultural crop material by means of a machine, comprising the steps of:determining a proportion of at least one product in a mixture of products containing fruit and bodies foreign to the fruit by the followin

[ Having thus described the invention, what is claimed is:] [4.] A method of harvesting agricultural crop material by means of a machine, comprising the steps of:determining a proportion of at least one product in a mixture of products containing fruit and bodies foreign to the fruit by the following sub-steps:taking shots in the near infrared by apparatus on said machine to obtain at least one initial image of the mixture to be examined;thresholding comprising the allocation, to each pixel of the image, of one out of two extreme grey levels, corresponding to the initial grey level of the pixel in relation to a determined threshold;determining the outlines of patterns in the image produced by the thresholding substep with a first extreme grey level corresponding to the foreign bodies;reducing in a peripheral and regular fashion, the area of said patterns by allocating a second extreme grey level to the pixels involved in order to obtain an intermediate image; andenlarging, in a peripheral and regular fashion, the area of the patterns of the first extreme grey level of the intermediate image, in order to reconstitute the image to be submitted to the recording substep, the peripheral expansion being performed by a same number of pixels as the peripheral reduction carried out to obtain the intermediate image; andrecording, over at least one zone of the image produced by the thresholding, of the number of pixels of at least one extreme grey level to determine an area ratio between zones occupied respectively by crop material and foreign bodies in the image;averaging area ratios calculated over a series of images to calculate a determined proportion; andusing the determined proportion to adapt at least one operating parameter of the machine which has an effect on said proportion.