Determining Harvesting Efficiency via Multiple Combine GPS Logs

Abstract. The efficiency of the harvesting process is of interest to farm operators, particularly when multiple combines are working in the same field. Determining which parts of the field were harvested by which combine is an important and nontrivial task. Even though current yield monitors do a good job of finding harvested area if there are no other combines harvesting the field, problems arise with multiple combines operating in one field for one harvest. This motivated the investigation of a method of determining harvested area of multiple combines working together in a field. This paper presents an algorithm for determining which parts of a field were harvested by which combine. The presented algorithm works with only GPS logs, but could be extended to use more data if it were available (e.g., header position, machine status). Then, using the harvested area per combine and each combine's path, a harvesting efficiency per combine is computed. These efficiency data could be utilized in evaluating the relative efficiencies of different harvesting patterns. Also, knowing which parts of the field were harvested by which combine could be leveraged by a larger system of crop traceability. The data used in the development and evaluation consist of several whole fields‘ worth of harvest data, with most fields being harvested by more than one combine.