TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to material-conveying systems and, more particularly, to agricultural material-conveying systems.

BACKGROUND

In the agricultural industry, conveyors or material-conveying systems are used to load grain, seed, fertilizer or other such bulk materials into a storage bin or to offload product from a storage bin.

Aligning a conveyor with a bin, particularly aligning a spout of the conveyor with a bin opening, is difficult and time-consuming and often requires two persons (a spotter and a driver) to perform the alignment. A system to position a conveyor relative to a bin is therefore highly desirable.

SUMMARY

The present invention generally provides a system and method for positioning a conveyor relative to a bin and, more specifically, to position a spout of the conveyor relative to an opening of the bin.

In one inventive aspect of the disclosure, a material-conveying system comprises a conveyor for conveying material to a bin and a conveyor positioning system associated with the conveyor. The conveyor positioning system comprises a processor for positioning the conveyor relative to the bin. The conveyor positioning system positions a spout of the conveyor over an opening of the bin. The conveyor positioning system in one implementation comprises a Global Navigation Satellite System-Real Time Kinematic (GNSS-RTK) positioning system that includes a fixed base station and a GNSS receiver on the conveyor.

In another inventive aspect of the disclosure, a method of positioning a conveyor relative to a bin comprises moving the conveyor to the bin raising the conveyor until the conveyor clears a height of the bin and positioning a spout of the conveyor relative to an opening of the bin. Moving the conveyor to the bin may involve identifying the bin and determining a distance and an angle of approach from the spout of the conveyor to the opening of the bin. Moving the conveyor to the bin may further comprise stopping the conveyor before the conveyor contacts the bin. In various implementations, positioning may be done in a fully automatic mode (with no user control to guide the positioning), a semi-automatic mode (with some limited user input guiding the positioning) or in a user-assisted mode (in which the user primarily guides the position but with some assistance from the system). Automatically or semi-automatically positioning the conveyor may be performed using a GNSS-RTK positioning system. The GNSS-RTK positioning system may also be used for assisted mode as well.

The foregoing presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an exhaustive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify essential, key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is discussed later. Other aspects of the invention are described below in relation to the accompanying drawings.

