Autonomous positioning of the unloading auger of a combine harvester by a laser sensor and GNSS

The paper proposes a method for the autonomous positioning of the unloading auger of a combine harvester by a laser sensor and global navigation satellite system (GNSS). The proposed method positions the unloading auger to the target position by the following process. First, by using GNSS, GPS compass, and laser range finder (LRF) installed on the combine harvester, a three-dimensional (3D) map is generated and then converted into a top-view image. Then, the upper quadrangle of the grain container is detected from the top-view image by using upper quadrangle detection method and the target position of the unloading auger is calculated. Lastly, the target position is applied to the combine harvester to perform the positioning of the unloading auger. The results of the experiment show that the proposed method has sufficient accuracy to perform the positioning of the unloading auger onto the target positions.