Patents by Inventor Christoph Heitmann
Christoph Heitmann has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 11944036Abstract: A forage harvester with at least one work assembly is disclosed. The forage harvester has a corn cracker to process grain components and a driver assistance system. The driver assistance system controls the corn cracker by adjusting the machine parameters of the corn cracker. In particular, the driver assistance system has an optimization model which includes a multidimensional characteristic map that represents a relationship between a processing quality of the grain components and at least three parameters that comprise an input parameter representing a current harvesting process state and at least one machine parameter of the corn cracker as an output parameter. Thus, the driver assistance system determines the output parameter in the control routine during the harvesting process based on the varying input parameter from the optimization model and adjusts it in the corn cracker to achieve a uniform given processing quality of the grain components during the harvesting process.Type: GrantFiled: September 9, 2021Date of Patent: April 2, 2024Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Sven Carsten Belau, Ingo Bönig, Jan Meyer zu Hörste
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Publication number: 20240065160Abstract: A system for determining a crop edge and a self-propelled harvester using the system for automatic control are disclosed. The system comprises a camera that generates optical information of a front environment of the harvester. The system further includes a computing unit that analyzes the images using artificial intelligence so that a planted area of a field on which a plant crop is located may be delimited from a remaining residual area of the field, thereby determining the plant crop. In turn, the computing unit is further configured to determine the crop edge of the plant crop based on the determination of the plant crop and to automatically control the harvester based on the determination of the crop edge.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 25, 2023Publication date: February 29, 2024Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Sven Carsten Belau, Christoph Heitmann, Dennis Neitemeier, Ingo Bönig
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Patent number: 11785889Abstract: A method and a system for determining an indicator of processing quality of an agricultural harvested material using a mobile device is disclosed. A computing unit analyzes image data of a prepared sample of harvested material containing grain components and non-grain components in an analytical routine to determine the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material. Further, the computing unit uses a trained machine learning model in the analytical routine to perform at least one step of determining the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material and that the computing unit adjusts at least one machine parameter of the forage harvester based on the indicator of processing quality.Type: GrantFiled: June 22, 2022Date of Patent: October 17, 2023Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Sven Carsten Belau, Frédéric Fischer, Christoph Heitmann, Ingo Bönig
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Publication number: 20230232740Abstract: A self-propelled forage harvester is disclosed that includes a blade sharpening and shear bar adjusting device, a monitoring device configured to cyclically generate information on the state of the cutterhead chopping glades and the distance of the shear bar to the cutting edge, and a control unit. The control unit evaluates the information provided by the monitoring device about the state of wear of the chopping blades and the distance, compares it with a limit value for the state of wear and/or the distance, where the limit value forms a lower limit for an optimum range to be maintained by the blade sharpening and shear bar adjusting device, of the instantaneous cutting sharpness of the chopping blades or of the distance and, when the limit value is reached, automatically triggers a sharpening process and/or of a shear bar adjustment by the blade sharpening and shear bar adjusting device.Type: ApplicationFiled: January 26, 2023Publication date: July 27, 2023Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Dennis Neitemeier, Markus Brune, Gregor Wehner, Sebastian Harsch, Ingo Bönig, Marwin Klein-Heimkamp
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Publication number: 20230060670Abstract: A self-propelled forage harvester and a method for controlling said forage harvester are disclosed. A measuring device of the forage harvester may have a plurality of electrodes spaced at a distance from each other. These electrodes may be arranged or positioned in an intermediate channel of a harvested material processing channel of the forage harvester and may form a plurality of capacitors. Further, delivery-specific parameters and/or material-specific parameters may be discernible from the measurements of the electrical capacitances of the plurality of capacitors.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 23, 2022Publication date: March 2, 2023Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Lehmann, Dennis Neitemeier, Christoph Heitmann
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Patent number: 11566883Abstract: A detection arrangement for detecting a wear status of a chopping knife arrangement of a chopping device provided for processing a product flow, wherein the chopping device has a revolving chopping drum receiving the chopping knife arrangement and at least one shear bar which cooperates with the chopping knives, with a sensor arrangement which has a magnetic exciter arrangement and a flux conducting device magnetically coupled thereto. The sensor arrangement provides a pole arrangement which forms at least one magnetic pole with a pole surface for conducting magnetic flux, wherein at least a portion of the chopping knife passes the pole arrangement during a rotation of the chopping drum. A voltage induced when a chopping knife arrangement passes the sensor arrangement forms the measured magnetic value, which is used by the evaluation unit to determine the state of wear of the chopping knife arrangement.Type: GrantFiled: March 11, 2020Date of Patent: January 31, 2023Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Dennis Neitemeier, Markus Brune, Jochen Huster, Frédéric Fischer, Bjoern Stremlau
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Publication number: 20220405912Abstract: A method and a system for determining an indicator of processing quality of an agricultural harvested material using a mobile device is disclosed. A computing unit analyzes image data of a prepared sample of harvested material containing grain components and non-grain components in an analytical routine to determine the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material. Further, the computing unit uses a trained machine learning model in the analytical routine to perform at least one step of determining the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 22, 2022Publication date: December 22, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Sven Carsten Belau, Frédéric Fischer, Christoph Heitmann, Ingo Bönig
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Publication number: 20220400612Abstract: A method and a system for determining an indicator of processing quality of an agricultural harvested material using a mobile device is disclosed. A computing unit analyzes image data of a prepared sample of harvested material containing grain components and non-grain components in an analytical routine to determine the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material. Further, the computing unit uses a trained machine learning model in the analytical routine to perform at least one step of determining the indicator of the processing quality of the agricultural harvested material and that the computing unit adjusts at least one machine parameter of the forage harvester based on the indicator of processing quality.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 22, 2022Publication date: December 22, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Sven Carsten Belau, Frédéric Fischer, Christoph Heitmann, Ingo Bönig
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Publication number: 20220361405Abstract: A method and a self-propelled forage harvester for determining the need for grinding chopping blades of a chopping device of the self-propelled forage harvester is disclosed. A monitoring device determines, such as cyclically, the state of wear of the chopping blades. The monitoring device comprises an input/output unit through which to enter or select a target state of the chopping blades to be produced by a grinding device as a target. The monitoring device generates, such as continuously, information depending on the target state and the determined state of wear, and causes an output on the input/output unit to visualize the extent to which the currently determined state of wear deviates from the target state.Type: ApplicationFiled: May 10, 2022Publication date: November 17, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Dennis Neitemeier, Markus Brune, Patrick Hinz
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Patent number: 11284566Abstract: A combine harvester for carrying out an agricultural harvesting process has a plurality of working units and a driver assistance system for controlling at least some of the working units. The combine harvester accommodates as working units a chaff cutter for comminuting harvested produce and a produce distributing arrangement in the rear area of the combine harvester downstream of the chaff cutter for distributing harvested produce on the field soil in adjustable throw directions. The respective throw direction comprises vector components of a horizontal throw direction and a vertical throw direction. The driver assistance system is adapted to optimize the control of the produce distributing arrangement by at least one of the substrategies including “throw direction correction” and/or “inclination-dependent produce distribution” and/or “produce distribution in longitudinal direction” and/or “produce distribution in transverse direction” with respect to at least one optimization criterion.Type: GrantFiled: July 23, 2019Date of Patent: March 29, 2022Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Joachim Baumgarten, Bastian Bormann, Andreas Wilken, Christopher Vieregge, Stefan Teroerde, Christoph Heitmann, Klaus Schaefer
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Publication number: 20220071091Abstract: A forage harvester with at least one work assembly is disclosed. The forage harvester has a corn cracker to process grain components and a driver assistance system. The driver assistance system controls the corn cracker by adjusting the machine parameters of the corn cracker. In particular, the driver assistance system has an optimization model which includes a multidimensional characteristic map that represents a relationship between a processing quality of the grain components and at least three parameters that comprise an input parameter representing a current harvesting process state and at least one machine parameter of the corn cracker as an output parameter. Thus, the driver assistance system determines the output parameter in the control routine during the harvesting process based on the varying input parameter from the optimization model and adjusts it in the corn cracker to achieve a uniform given processing quality of the grain components during the harvesting process.Type: ApplicationFiled: September 9, 2021Publication date: March 10, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Sven Carsten Belau, Ingo Bönig, Jan Meyer zu Hörste
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Publication number: 20220061215Abstract: A forage harvester is disclosed. The forage harvester has a work assembly for harvesting a crop and for processing harvested material of the crop, which includes grain components and non-grain components. In operation, the harvested material is transported in a harvested material flow along a harvested material transport path through the harvesting machine. The forage harvester also has a control assembly that includes an optical measuring system arranged on the harvested material transport path. The optical measuring system has a camera for recording image data of the harvested material of the harvested material flow. The control assembly, using an image recognition routine, determines image regions assigned to a non-grain component in the image data, determines geometric properties of the assigned non-grain components based on the image regions, and determines an indicator of a structural percentage of the harvested material from the geometric properties.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 18, 2021Publication date: March 3, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Sven Carsten Belau, Ingo Bönig, Frédéric Fischer
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Publication number: 20220061216Abstract: A forage harvester is disclosed. The forage harvester has at least one work assembly for processing harvested material of a crop, which includes grain components. In operation, the harvested material is transported in a harvested material flow along a harvested material transport path through the forage harvester. The forage harvester further includes a corn cracker as a work assembly and a control assembly that includes an optical measuring system. The optical measuring system has a camera for recording image data of the harvested material, with the camera being positioned after the corn cracker. The control assembly, using an image recognition routine, determines image regions assigned to a comminuted grain component in the image data, determines geometric properties of the assigned comminuted grain components based on the image regions, and determines an indicator of a processing quality of the comminuted grain components from the geometric properties.Type: ApplicationFiled: August 24, 2021Publication date: March 3, 2022Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Ingo Bönig, Sven Carsten Belau, Frédéric Fischer
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Patent number: 11185013Abstract: A self-propelled forage harvester is disclosed. The forage harvester includes a feed device, a chopping device comprising a cutterhead equipped with cutting blades and a shear bar for comminuting harvested material, a drive, and a driver assistance system for controlling at least the chopping device. The driver assistance system includes a memory for saving data and a computing device for processing the data saved in the memory, wherein the chopping device and the driver assistance system in combination form an automatic chopping system in that the computing device continuously determines a compaction of the comminuted harvested material using harvested material parameters during a harvesting process in order to autonomously ascertain and specify a cutting length to be adapted for maintaining nearly constant compactability.Type: GrantFiled: February 26, 2019Date of Patent: November 30, 2021Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Ingo Bönig, Carsten Grove, Alexander Kirchbeck, Bastian Kriebel
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Patent number: 11122739Abstract: An agricultural work machine for performing an agricultural work process is disclosed. The agricultural work machine includes working units and a driver assistance system for controlling the working units to achieve one or more quality criteria. The driver assistance system may set parameters to control the working units in order to satisfy the criteria. Further, the driver assistance system includes a graphical user interface through which an operator may change the setting of one of the quality criteria. Responsive to the change, the driver assistance system may determine the expected effects on other quality criteria. In addition, the driver assistance system may visually highlight the expected effects on the graphical user interface.Type: GrantFiled: February 14, 2019Date of Patent: September 21, 2021Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventor: Christoph Heitmann
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Patent number: 11109537Abstract: A forage harvester comprising an edge sharpness detection device for detecting a degree of edge sharpness of a cutting mechanism. The cutting mechanism comminutes a stream of harvested material, with a material inflow area being defined where the cutting blades interact with the shear bar to comminute the harvested material. The edge sharpness detection device excites one or more magnetic circuits, with the respective magnetic circuit being closed by the respective cutting blade during rotation of the cutter drum once one of the cutting blades passes the magnetic assembly. The edge sharpness detection device detects the magnetic flux in the respective magnetic circuit and, based on a detected change, determines a degree of edge sharpness of the respective cutting blade. Further, the magnetic flux of the magnetic circuit may be guided lengthwise in the cutting blade at least along a longitudinal section of the respective cutting blade.Type: GrantFiled: December 12, 2018Date of Patent: September 7, 2021Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Dennis Neitemeier, Christoph Heitmann, Jochen Huster, Markus Brune, Boris Kettelhoit
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Publication number: 20200363184Abstract: A detection arrangement for detecting a wear status of a chopping knife arrangement of a chopping device provided for processing a product flow, wherein the chopping device has a revolving chopping drum receiving the chopping knife arrangement and at least one shear bar which cooperates with the chopping knives, with a sensor arrangement which has a magnetic exciter arrangement and a flux conducting device magnetically coupled thereto. The sensor arrangement provides a pole arrangement which forms at least one magnetic pole with a pole surface for conducting magnetic flux, wherein at least a portion of the chopping knife passes the pole arrangement during a rotation of the chopping drum. A voltage induced when a chopping knife arrangement passes the sensor arrangement forms the measured magnetic value, which is used by the evaluation unit to determine the state of wear of the chopping knife arrangement.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 11, 2020Publication date: November 19, 2020Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph HEITMANN, Dennis NEITEMEIER, Markus BRUNE, Jochen HUSTER, Frédéric FISCHER, Bjoern STREMLAU
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Publication number: 20200359563Abstract: A driver assistance system of an agricultural work machine constructed as forage harvester, wherein the agricultural work machine comprises a header for gathering crop, a chopping device having a chopping drum and chopping knives for comminuting the crop, and a monitoring device operable to generate a signal containing information about the wear status of the respective chopping knife and/or about the distance of the cutting edge of a chopping knife from a shear bar. This information is compared with a reference value, and the agricultural work machine has activation devices for activating and deactivating a knife grinding process and means for change of position of the shear bar. The monitoring device is integrated in the driver assistance system so that the driver assistance system automatically detects when a knife grinding process or a change of position of the shear bar must be activated or deactivated.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 23, 2020Publication date: November 19, 2020Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph HEITMANN, Dennis NEITEMEIER, Markus BRUNE, Jochen HUSTER, Bjoern STREMLAU, Frédéric FISCHER
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Publication number: 20200060092Abstract: A combine harvester for carrying out an agricultural harvesting process has a plurality of working units and a driver assistance system for controlling at least some of the working units. The combine harvester accommodates as working units a chaff cutter for comminuting harvested produce and a produce distributing arrangement in the rear area of the combine harvester downstream of the chaff cutter for distributing harvested produce on the field soil in adjustable throw directions. The respective throw direction comprises vector components of a horizontal throw direction and a vertical throw direction. The driver assistance system is adapted to optimize the control of the produce distributing arrangement by at least one of the substrategies including “throw direction correction” and/or “inclination-dependent produce distribution” and/or “produce distribution in longitudinal direction” and/or “produce distribution in transverse direction” with respect to at least one optimization criterion.Type: ApplicationFiled: July 23, 2019Publication date: February 27, 2020Applicant: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Joachim Baumgarten, Bastian Bormann, Andreas Wilken, Christopher Vieregge, Stefan Teroerde, Christoph Heitmann, Klaus Schaefer
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Patent number: 10492364Abstract: A combine harvester having a chopper configured for chopping crop, which comprises a cutting cylinder fitted with chopper knives, a knife carrier fitted with counter knives, and a rasp bar arrangement. The counter knives and/or the rasp bar arrangement can be moved into a partial stream passing by the chopper. The harvester also has a crop spreading device configured for spreading the chopped-material stream emerging from the combine harvester on the ground in the rear region of the combine harvester, and a sensor unit configured for generating sensor data which represent at least one parameter influencing the spreading quality of the chopped-material stream emerging from the combine harvester. There is a control unit that adapts the position of the rasp bar arrangement and/or the counter knives depending on the spreading quality.Type: GrantFiled: March 15, 2018Date of Patent: December 3, 2019Assignee: CLAAS Selbstfahrende Erntemaschinen GmbHInventors: Christoph Heitmann, Joachim Baumgarten, Christopher Vieregge, Christian Beulke, Stefan Teroerde, Bastian Bormann