MEASUREMENT THE PATHS OF FARM MACHINERY USING AN OPTICAL WAVE RANGE FINDER

To straighten the path that farm machinery follows in paddy fields, it is necessary to measure and evaluate the tracks that these machines leave behind. However, there are no known methods for making such measurements and evaluations since it is difficult to accurately trace the paths that the machine make in paddy fields. Therefore, a measuring system has been developed which can accurately recored the path of a farm machinery in a field by measuring the horizontal straight-line distance from the side of the field to the machine. This system consists of a track subsystem on the machine and a range finder system. A measuring appraratus is installed on a flatcar which runs on rails over 50 m long at the side of the filed. The track subsystem uses a CCD camera to track the movement of the machine in the field which is following a lengthwise path. The range finder subsystem measures the distance that the measuring apparatus has traveled on the rails and the distance from the app ratus to the machine in the field. This system makes it possible to record the path that the machine travels. Even though differences in traveling distance arise between the measuring apparatus and the farm machine, these differences are detected by image processing , which allows the machine in the field to be located accurately. The short(0.05 second) time required for image processing is enough to follow an object . In the present study, this system was able to measure the path that a moving tractor makes. Even though a lag of up to 0.4 meters occurred, this system did not miss its target during operation of the track subsystem. Thus the path measuring system developed here is able to record vehicle paths automatically by following the movement of vehicles in the field and measuring the distance to them. It is expected to come into use in such applications as unmanned moving vehicle tests.