Woodworking – Process – Timber harvesting or processing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-23
2001-02-06
Bray, W. Donald (Department: 3725)
Woodworking
Process
Timber harvesting or processing
C144S004100, C144S336000, C144S357000, C250S22300B, C250S559250
Reexamination Certificate
active
06182725
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to a method and a system for timber harvesting and forestry according to the preamble of the appended claims
1
and
17
.
Conventional timber harvesting and work operations in connection thereto are today carried out comparatively primitively in the sense that the forest raw material is nearly handled as a bulk product without any particularly careful adaptation (marking for cross-cutting) at the moment of harvesting. Even if an evaluation of standing forest timber for sale is carried out as a preparation for a certain harvesting this is regularly of a rather rough type. Accordingly, the real outcome of the harvesting may be considerably different than the outcome theoretically calculated. An additional problem of the timber harvesting technique of today is that is tends to be run in a comparatively small scale in the sense that as a rule only one seller and one buyer of wood raw material are involved in a certain harvesting. Borders between different forest owners have to be carefully considered, which is a consequence of the fact that the forest raw material is not possible to identify in detail.
The consequences of the shortcomings mentioned above are considerable costs. A large amount of manual planning and administration work is required.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is primarily to create conditions for handling the wood raw material not as an anonymous bulk product but as products having an identity.
For obtaining this object the present invention delivers the solution that in a method for harvesting by means of a harvesting machine comprising a vehicle and a harvesting arrangement mounted thereon the position of the harvesting machine is determined in connection to felling a tree and at least one piece of timber obtained from the tree is marked with the position information.
The piece of timber so obtained will by this become and individual connectable to the location of growth in question, which means that the individual forest owner with certainty is able to determine if the piece of timber in question belongs to him or any other after the transport of the piece of timber away from the very harvesting place.
The conversion of the timber raw material from a bulk product into individuals able to be identified described above means also that not only a plurality of sellers may be comfortably kept apart with respect to their products, but a plurality of buyers may also be handled on one and the same location of harvesting. When the idea of the invention is consummately utilised the position information marked on the piece of timber is intended to be that exact that it shall be possible to state from exactly which tree the piece of timber emanates. The analysis of the timber stock taken place before the harvesting is also intended to be carried out through the remote analysis technique discussed below that precisely that precisely that the individual tree may be unambiguously determined with respect to position and also be forecasted with a rather high accuracy with respect to timber quality and volume. Such an accurate analysis in advance means conditions for a very accurate calculation of the yield of a certain harvesting in advance. Furthermore, the very harvesting may be very purposefully controlled so that exactly the trees to be harvested for an optimum result also really get harvested. According to the invention a control unit arranged on the harvesting machine may be adapted to control the harvesting machine on the basis of data emanating from the pre-analysis of the forest region and harvesting instructions determined on the basis thereof to only harvest exactly the trees determined in advance to be harvested. Such a high resolution, i.e. at the level of a single tree, may be achieved if an accurate registration of the forest is carried out by means of a photographical or other registration technique and these registrations are accurately co-ordinated with geographically correct conditions. Furthermore, a very high resolution is required with respect to the position determining device arranged on the harvesting machine. Such a high resolution is today already obtainable by means of the satellite-based GPS-system (GPS=Global Positioning System.)
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention the marking on the single pieces of timber intended for sawing into boards is read before the sawing and this marking information is stored so that the boards emanating from the piece of timber may by means therefore be provided with a marking including at least information about the growth location of the original tree. Conditions for an additional check of the harvesting result with respect to both volume and quality are by that created. It is possible to correlate information about the actual yield of boards from the piece of timber and identity information with respect to exactly this piece of timber in the sawmill so that an exact conclusion with respect to the yield of the individual tree may be made. The land owner gets substantially improved possibilities to check that forest stocks valuable according to evaluations of standing timber forest for sale carried out also really arrive to the economical yield expected and are not substantially degraded in the chain of handling the timber, for example as a consequence of an incompetent adaptation or an inadequate handling from another point of view.
Even if the optimum advantage of the invention is obtainable when the preanalysis and the harvesting take place with an accuracy corresponding to a resolution in the order of individual trees as discussed above, a less accurate resolution than that may be utilised when the idea of the invention is carried out to a smaller extent, for example a resolution in the order of one or some meters.
Specific features with respect to the system according to the invention appear from the following claims.
Details and advantages in connection to the invention are dealt with in the detailed description following.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3787700 (1974-01-01), Chasson
patent: 4737031 (1988-04-01), Mahlberg et al.
patent: 4947909 (1990-08-01), Stroud
patent: 4982772 (1991-01-01), Dutina
patent: 5457635 (1995-10-01), Scott
patent: 5949086 (1999-09-01), Reponen et al.
patent: 4232412 (1994-03-01), None
patent: 0204008 (1986-12-01), None
patent: 8900808 (1989-02-01), None
patent: 9112711 (1991-09-01), None
Bray W. Donald
Browdy and Neimark
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