ITRM20130526A1 - PREVENTION AND SAFETY SYSTEM FOR THE CONTROL AND MONITORING OF AGRICULTURAL OR FOREST MEDIA. - Google Patents

Description

DESCRIPTION

The present invention refers to a prevention and safety system for the control and monitoring of agricultural or forestry vehicles.

More specifically, it refers to a safety system, mainly aimed at the prevention of dangerous situations that could occur during the work performed by the operators on said vehicles, based on a monitoring, risk assessment and communication device, mounted on the vehicle, cooperating , through suitable communication systems, with an alarm control and management center which, in case of need, can activate an emergency intervention.

Safety during the handling of mechanical vehicles - motor vehicles, trucks or operating machines - and the prevention of dangerous situations is of great interest also for agriculture.

Sector accident data (source INAIL) show that on average the tractor alone is responsible for 10% of accidents and 35% of fatalities.

As regards the mode of occurrence, the most serious risks to which the operator driving the tractor is exposed are certainly represented by the vehicle overturning due to a loss of longitudinal stability (parallel to the direction of travel) and / or transversal (perpendicular to the direction of travel). direction of travel) due to overloading of the tractor (e.g. attached implements), due to excessive towing effort, sudden maneuvers, excessive slope of the ground and so on.

Longitudinal overturning or overturning is generally due to a loss of grip of the wheels of an axle or of the tracks (i.e. at the front or rear of the tractor) due to a too high slope of the ground and / or a too high load. which acts on the front or rear area of the tractor (e.g. in the event of excessive towing effort and / or arrangement of the towed load downstream when traveling uphill or downhill in steeply sloping areas). The overturning or lateral overturning is triggered by a loss of grip of the wheels (or tracks) of the same side of the vehicle, generally due to: excessive speed when cornering, use in areas with steep slopes, use in areas with roughness soil of considerable size (e.g. boulders, hollows, ditches, etc.), puncture of a tire, transport of oscillating loads, transport of loads not correctly balanced with respect to the center of gravity (median plane) of the vehicle.

The effect of the overturning is the lateral lying down of the vehicle (rotation of 90 ° with respect to an axis of the vehicle) or its complete overturning (rotation of 180 °) in the event of an excessive loss of stability (lateral or longitudinal)

In the current state of knowledge, for agricultural or forestry tractors, the main prevention systems in the face of the danger of overturning are essentially represented by passive prevention devices, i.e. aimed not at avoiding the occurrence of the dangerous event but rather at limiting the extent of any consequences for the driver.

These devices are based on the principle of preserving a certain "safety volume" or "free zone", keeping the operator inside it during the entire development of the overturning; in this way, the risk for the operator of being crushed between the constituent parts of the tractor (and / or the protective structure itself) and the ground could be reasonably excluded.

To achieve this result, therefore, the tractor must be equipped with:

� a protective structure in the event of the tractor overturning, i.e. a sufficiently rigid structure installed directly on the tractor, essentially having the purpose of ensuring a safety volume intended to contain the operator (protective frame / roll-bar),

� a retention device that, regardless of the operating conditions of the tractor, holds the operator within the safety volume (seat belt).

The need to adapt agricultural tractors with specific technical measures ("Adaptation of agricultural or forestry tractors to the minimum safety requirements for the use of work equipment" provided for in point 2.4 of part II of Annex V to Legislative Decree 81/08) is still concretely posed today for a significant part of the models of tractors currently in operation.

In fact, the obligation to adapt agricultural or forestry tractors to certain requisites required by current legislation appears to have been widely disregarded, also due to a series of concurrent circumstances, one of which is represented by the lack of availability of precise technical-constructive guidelines. .

In order to overcome this lack, solving the problem of the difficult adaptation of current agricultural machinery to said particular technical-constructive requirements, and in order to prevent the occurrence of the dangerous event, the state of the art currently has numerous systems based on sensors to be applied on the vehicle capable of detecting particular conditions and sending them to devices equipped with software that process this information by returning impulses and commands capable of warning the driver of the agricultural vehicle of the imminent danger or of non-optimal work situations and, in in some cases, to correct the errors found and the anomalies caused even unintentionally by the operator independently or with the aid of mechanical devices.

Some of these systems are illustrated in the following documents:

patent document no. US19960763006 entitled "System and method for the detection of vehicle rollover conditions" filed on 10.12.1996 which illustrates a system based on a multiplicity of tilt sensors mounted on the vehicle chassis and on the vehicle suspension system to detect acceleration lateral and lateral load transfer; also equipped with a display, the system allows the operator to avoid conditions that could cause the vehicle to overturn;

patent document no. US20020158294 entitled "Antilock braking system based roll over prevention" filed on 30.05.2002 including a mechanical anti-lock braking system, associated with an electronic control unit, whose operation is managed by a vehicle lateral acceleration detector;

patent document no. US20060368005 entitled "Rollover prevention device" filed on 03.03.2006 which illustrates an anti-rollover device for commercial tractors / trailers that detects the critical condition in which the trailer overturns cannot be avoided and, by acting on pneumatic cylinders and pins, allows the automatic trailer release, so as to preserve human life and minimize damage to property;

patent document no. US20090357313 entitled "Dynamic rollover prevention" filed on 21.01.2009 which illustrates a method for accessing data relating to one or more vehicle parameters in order to detect conditions of imminent overturning and avoid it by activating suitable devices;

patent document no. JP20070021727 entitled "Vehicle rollover prevention device" filed on 31.01.2007 which illustrates a device to prevent the tractor and trailer from overturning by detecting certain parameters such as: roll angle of the tractor, total weight of the tractor and trailer, weight the load and stresses of the tractor / trailer coupling, the roll angle of the trailer according to the load;

patent document no. BZ2011A000007 entitled "Detection system for the danger of overturning and contrasting overturning for vehicles, in particular agricultural vehicles" filed on 22.02.2011 which illustrates a system consisting of a control unit and suitable sensors for detecting any conditions of danger of overturning of a tractor and contrasting them by activating hydraulic suspensions acting on the front axle of the vehicle; the system is also equipped with devices for sending alarm signals and locating the vehicle in case of overturning;

"SAR anti-overturning system - load moment indicator (L.M.I.)" relating to a system for monitoring the stability of an agricultural vehicle comprising: � a deformation sensor located on one of the two rear axles of the vehicle that detects structural deformations caused by handling load indicating to the operator the progressive approach to the tipping point and, in some versions, inhibiting the machine functions, and is a control unit composed of a LED technology display, which processes the signals coming from the sensor and displays the longitudinal stability thresholds of the vehicle and which, in case of reaching the critical area, signals to the operator (both visually and acoustically) the dangerous condition and can activate the blocking of the hydraulic power controls.

Most of the systems illustrated in the precedents listed above are mostly characterized by the following drawbacks:

� complexity of installation of a multiplicity of detection devices distributed on the vehicle and management of the numerous data collected,

� complexity of installation on the vehicle of mechanical devices designed to restore balance in case of danger of overturning;

� laborious and instantaneous mechanical, automatic or manual operations, which must be carried out to bring the vehicle back into equilibrium condition;

It is impossible for control units positioned on the vehicle to carry out an assessment of the risk of overturning in relation to the characteristics and conditions of the territory in which the vehicle operates.

The present invention has the purpose of solving the aforementioned drawbacks by providing a prevention and safety system aimed at preventing the overturning of agricultural and forestry vehicles comprising hardware positioned on board the vehicle equipped with suitable software for managing alarms, acquisition and the processing of data collected on board the vehicle and sending, by means of suitable communication systems, to an external control and detection center.

The system is able to assess the risk of overturning the vehicle both on the basis of the inclinations, moment by moment, of the vehicle itself, and on the basis of the experience that the vehicle has previously had on the territory in which it operates since it creates two risk maps, a detail on board the vehicle and a general one in the system control center.

The system hardware, consisting of an acquisition, evaluation and communication device, and a console positioned in the passenger compartment of the vehicle, is able to report to the driver alarms sent by the software component of the system which integrates data from different sources. and that builds and maintains a risk map obtained from the data of these sources.

Should an agricultural vehicle overturn, despite the prevention features described above, the onboard hardware is able to detect the event and report the alarm to the software component to trigger the appropriate emergency procedures.

The benefits that it is hoped will be induced by the system according to the present invention are the following:

� reduction in the number of cases of overturning of agricultural vehicles;

� in cases where the overturning occurs, the system will check the situation and send any necessary assistance with a reduction in mortality in cases of overturning;

� possibility of managing crises of a different nature by means of alarm devices notified by the control panel;

� recording of data, including for insurance purposes;

� localization of vehicles, through the functions of tracking and georeferencing.

The system is illustrated below in a preferred embodiment, with reference to the figures of the attached drawing tables which respectively illustrate:

figure 1 - a summary scheme of the phases that characterize it;

figure 2 - a diagram of a use case of the system.

The system consists of two main and distinct components.

The first component operates on the agricultural vehicle and consists of:

� a hardware / software detection and communication device (SCS), able to constantly monitor, through the use of accelerometric and gyroscopic sensors, the state of the agricultural vehicle and, in case it detects a dangerous condition, for example an incipient overturning , signals the danger both to the vehicle operator and to the operator in the control room;

� a control unit, console, equipped with a series of indicator lights, a panic button for emergency calls, a loudspeaker and environmental microphone for sound signals and telephone communications and, possibly, an image acquisition tool ; this unit constitutes the man-machine interface and allows the operator of the agricultural vehicle to communicate with the SCS apparatus and the control unit;

� a global navigation satellite system equipped with a GPS signal receiver, or of another type (Glonass, Galileo, Baidu, ...);

� a communication device (GSM, GPRS, UMTS).

The second component operates in a control room external to the vehicle through a software platform of a web-based application type that allows the central operator to know the position of the agricultural vehicle from which a signal has been received, a warning of entering a dangerous area. , an automatic request for intervention following an accident, an explicit request for assistance by the operator of the vehicle; this software also allows the operator in the plant to send information and warnings to the operator of the agricultural vehicle.

The SCS apparatus, integral with the agricultural vehicle in a known position, has an internal set of accelerometers and gyroscopes which, by means of roto-translation operations, allow to evaluate the position and orientation of the vehicle's center of gravity in space and identify the following situations:

1) safe travel;

2) incipient overturning;

3) overturning occurred.

During the installation phase, all the information of the vehicle is entered in the SCS firmware which will allow a suitable algorithm to evaluate the state of the center of gravity of the vehicle.

The maps of the territory (GIS) where the vehicle will operate are also preloaded, so as to be able to associate each area with its own slope, or other more general risk factor, and signal to the operator of the agricultural vehicle and in the control room the approach. a dangerous area where you can drive with greater caution.

While the tractor is running, the SCS equipment collects a series of data and uses them to update the local map and possibly share them with the software in the control room and / or other SCS present on the other tractors of the same fleet.

The SCS device is self-powered and interfaces both with the electrical system of the vehicle, for recharging the batteries, and with the on-board instrumentation for checking that the safety equipment provided for the vehicle is correctly in use: seat belts , rollbar, etc.

The agricultural vehicle and the plant communicate via data connection and the sending and receiving of SMS, within which the information is encoded. One of the lights on the console constantly informs the operator of the GSM coverage of the area in which it operates.

The software platform, operating in the control room, is able to locate the exact position of an agricultural or forestry vehicle (tractor) thanks to the GPS coordinates that provide useful data for displaying the position and status of the vehicle in real time to organize timely intervention.

Through satellite localization functions, on-board sensors and immediate messaging exchange between vehicle and control unit, the system is able to receive information in real time on the status of the vehicle to organize timely intervention, using a device equipped with a GPS receiver and connectivity UMTS or GPRS data.

Furthermore, the system is equipped with a database capable of storing all the activities relating to the vehicles, providing an excellent statistical processing tool, with consequent optimization of decision-making processes.

In summary, the system mainly deals with:

� report to the driver of an agricultural vehicle:

to. the absence of the GSM and / or GPS signal;

b. the danger of the land on which the agricultural vehicle is operating;

c. the degree of danger of the inclination of the agricultural vehicle;

d. the state of the protective frame / roll-bar;

And. the condition of the seat belts;

� create a map of the areas of greatest risk;

� check the status, the layout and the history of each agricultural vehicle through web services;

� prepare an immediate emergency protocol in case of overturning of the vehicle or, more generally, of risk for the safety of the driver;

� allow the driver to contact the operations center in the event of an emergency via an alarm device;

� provide "black box" functions for insurance purposes;

Optionally, the presence of a camera as an inspection element (automatic in the event of an accident or at the request of the operator) allows the system to minimize any false positives.

Collaterally, the system provides:

� management functions: vehicle registry, personalized management of vehicles (single or in groups), localization on request, graphic tracking of the vehicle; � alert detection & geofencing: perimeter of areas, notification for entrances and / or exits from configured areas;

� alarm management: signaling of alarms and danger of the ground, sending messages via data connections or SMS, visualization of alerts on the monitors of the operational centers;

� reporting: visualization of data relating to the activities of agricultural vehicles and statistics of the territory.

The hardware on board the agricultural vehicle is designed for:

� visually signal the presence of the GSM and GPS signal, the inclination of the agricultural vehicle and the correct insertion of the protection frame / roll-bar;

� visually and acoustically signal the correct insertion of the seat belt, the possible entry into an area at risk of overturning and the exceeding of the safety threshold of the vehicle inclination level and, in both cases, memorize the relative status;

� signal, visually and acoustically, a generic remote alarm sent by the control unit;

� acquire the GPS info;

� sample the states of the agricultural vehicle by storing them in a history;

� send the statuses collected in the log to the control center with a daily report;

� build a risk map on the territory traveled by the agricultural vehicle, memorize the risk map and consult it to evaluate the entry into areas at greater risk by the agricultural vehicle;

� send messages to the control center to report the occurrence of a rollover or request assistance via panic button and, in both cases, store the status of the agricultural vehicle;

� send status messages upon request by the control center and then store the status of the agricultural vehicle;

� take a photograph, in case of overturning or on request, sending it to the control unit and storing it together with the status of the relative vehicle;

� open a connection to download and install the updates sent by the control panel.

The self-powered SCS must offer the possibility of putting the agricultural operator in telephone contact with the plant operator and must be able to perform a constant self-diagnosis and, if necessary, automatic reset.

The control room, upon receipt of an overturning alarm message or event due to pressing the panic button, must alert the control panel operator and start the emergency protocol.

Upon receipt of a daily report message from an agricultural vehicle, the control unit must update the information relating to the agricultural vehicle that sent the message and the risk map upon request of the control unit, the control center must send request messages. status, generic remote alarm and image request. Finally, it must be able to forward a call via GSM to the SCS of an agricultural vehicle to put the plant operator and the agricultural operator in communication.

The present invention has been described for illustrative but not limitative purposes, but it is to be understood that variations and / or modifications may be made by those skilled in the art without thereby departing from the relative scope of protection, as defined by the attached claims.

Claims (16)

CLAIMS 1. "Prevention and safety system for the control and monitoring of agricultural or forestry vehicles" characterized by a first component on board the vehicle comprising: � a hardware / software device SCS (Sensor and Communication System) for monitoring the state of the agricultural vehicle and communicating the data detected both to the operator of the vehicle and to an operator in an external control center, � a control unit, console, constituting the man-machine interface, which allows the operator of the agricultural vehicle to communicate with the aforementioned hardware / software apparatus and with the external control center, � a global navigation satellite system equipped GPS signal receiver, or other type (Glonass, Galileo, Baidu, ...), � a communication device (GSM, GPRS, UMTS), and a second component operating in a control room external to the vehicle consisting of: � an application-type software platform, for communication to and from hardware components and for the location of the vehicle. 2. System as per claim 1 characterized by the fact that the SCS hardware / software apparatus is integral with the agricultural vehicle and includes a set of accelerometric devices and gyroscopes which, by means of roto-translation operations, allow to evaluate the position and orientation of the center of gravity of the vehicle in space and in particular to identify the following situations: Safe travel; � incipient overturning; � overturning occurred. 3. System referred to in the preceding claims characterized by the fact that information processed by the sensors of the vehicle is entered in the software of the SCS apparatus which allows, by means of a suitable algorithm, the evaluation of the state of the center of gravity of the vehicle. 4. System referred to in the preceding claims characterized by the fact that the maps of the territory where the vehicle operates and the areas at risk of overturning are generated in the software of the SCS apparatus. 5. System referred to in the previous claims characterized by the fact that, while the vehicle is running, the SCS apparatus collects a series of data and uses them to update the local map 6. System referred to in the preceding claims characterized by the fact that, while the vehicle is running, the SCS apparatus collects a series of data and shares them with the software in the control room 7. System as per the preceding claims characterized by the fact that, while the vehicle is running, the SCS apparatus collects a series of data which, through the control unit software, are shared with the other SCS apparatuses present on the other tractors of the same fleet or work area. 8. System as per the preceding claims characterized by the fact that the SCS apparatus is self-powered and interfaces both with the electrical system of the vehicle, for recharging the batteries, and with the on-board instrumentation for checking that the safety equipment provided for the vehicle (seat belts, roll bars, etc.) are properly in use. 9. System according to the preceding claims characterized in that the console comprises a set of indicator lights, an alarm device (panic button), environmental microphone, loudspeaker and acoustic signaling device (buzzer). 10. System according to claim 9 characterized in that the console is arranged for the connection of an image acquisition tool. 11. System referred to in claim 1 characterized by the fact that the software platform allows the exchange operator to detect: � the position of the agricultural vehicle, both following a notification of the same, and by explicit request of the plant operator, � an automatic request for intervention following an accident, it is an explicit request for assistance by the operator of the vehicle. 12. System according to claim 11 characterized in that the software platform uses GPS devices to obtain data useful for displaying on cartography. 13. System according to the preceding claims characterized in that it is capable of receiving information in real time on the status of each vehicle by means of satellite localization functions, on-board sensors and immediate message exchange between vehicle and control room. 14. System as per the preceding claims characterized in that it is equipped with a database capable of storing all the activities relating to the vehicles, providing an excellent statistical processing tool. 15. System as per the preceding claims characterized by the following operations: � report to the driver of an agricultural vehicle: to. the absence of the GSM and / or GPS signal; b. the danger of the land on which the agricultural vehicle is operating; c. the degree of danger of the inclination of the agricultural vehicle; d. the state of the protective frame / roll-bar; And. the condition of the seat belts; � create a map of the areas of greatest risk; � check the status, the route and the history of each agricultural vehicle belonging to a fleet through web services; � prepare an immediate emergency protocol in case of overturning of the vehicle or, more generally, of risk for the safety of the driver; � allow the driver to contact the operations center in the event of an emergency via an alarm device; � provide "black box" functions for insurance purposes. 16. System as per the preceding claims characterized by the fact that collaterally provides: � management functions: vehicle registry, personalized management of vehicles (single or in groups), localization on request, graphic tracking of the vehicle; � alert detection & geofencing: perimeter of areas, notification for entrances and / or exits from configured areas; � alarm management: signaling of alarms and danger of the ground, sending messages via SMS, visualization of alerts on the monitors of the operational centers; � reporting: visualization of data relating to the activities of agricultural vehicles and statistics of the territory.