• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.36-43
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• 2024

The yield is basic and necessary information in precision agriculture that reduces input resources and enhances productivity. Yield information is important because it can be used to set up farming plans and evaluate farming results. Yield monitoring systems are commercialized in the United States and Japan but not in Korea. Therefore, such a system must be developed. This study was conducted to develop a yield monitoring system that improved performance by correcting a previously developed flow sensor using a grain tank-weighing system. An impact-plated type flow sensor was installed in a grain tank where grains are placed, and grain tank-weighing sensors were installed under the grain tank to estimate the weight of the grain inside the tank. The grain flow rate and grain weight prediction models showed high correlations, with coefficient of determinations (R2) of 0.9979 and 0.9991, respectively. A main controller of the yield monitoring system that calculated the real-time yield using a sensor output value was also developed and installed in a combine harvester. Field tests of the combine harvester yield monitoring system were conducted in a rice paddy field. The developed yield monitoring system showed high accuracy with an error of 0.13%. Therefore, the newly developed yield monitoring system can be used to predict grain weight with high accuracy.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.135-144
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• 1999

An yield monitoring system plays a key role in precision farming. An yield monitoring system and a DGPS were implemented to a widely used domestic combine for yield mapping of a small sized paddy field, and yield mapping algorithms were investigated in this study. The yield variation in the 0.1ha rice paddy field was measured by installing a yield flow sensor and a grain moisture sensor at the end of the clean grain elevator discharging grains into a grain tank. Yield map of the test filed was drawn in a point map and a linear interpolated map based on the result of the field test. The size of a unit yield grid in yield mapping was determined based on the combine traveling speed, effective harvesting width and data storing period. It was possible to construct the yield map of a small sized paddy field.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.63-77
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• 2024

Yield monitoring systems have become integral to precision agriculture, providing insights into the spatial variability of crop yield and playing an important role in modern harvesting technology. This paper aims to review current research trends in yield monitoring systems, specifically designed for non-grain crops, including cabbages, radishes, potatoes, and tomatoes. A systematic literature survey was conducted to evaluate the performance of various monitoring methods for non-grain crop yields. This study also assesses both mass- and volume-based yield monitoring systems to provide precise evaluations of agricultural productivity. Integrating load cell technology enables precise mass flow rate measurements and cumulative weighing, offering an accurate representation of crop yields, and the incorporation of image-based analysis enhances the overall system accuracy by facilitating volumetric flow rate calculations and refined volume estimations. Mass flow methods, including weighing, force impact, and radiometric approaches, have demonstrated impressive results, with some measurement error levels below 5%. Volume flow methods, including paddle wheel and optical methodologies, yielded error levels below 3%. Signal processing and correction measures also play a crucial role in achieving accurate yield estimations. Moreover, the selection of sensing approach, sensor layout, and mounting significantly influence the performance of monitoring systems for specific crops.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.408-417
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• 2016

Purpose: Yield monitoring systems are an essential component of precision agriculture. They indicate the spatial variability of crop yield in fields, and have become an important factor in modern harvesters. The objective of this paper was to review research trends related to yield monitoring sensors for grain crops. Methods: The literature was reviewed for research on the major sensing components of grain yield monitoring systems. These major components included grain flow sensors, moisture content sensors, and cutting width sensors. Sensors were classified by sensing principle and type, and their performance was also reviewed. Results: The main targeted harvesting grain crops were rice, wheat, corn, barley, and grain sorghum. Grain flow sensors were classified into mass flow and volume flow methods. Mass flow sensors were mounted primarily at the clean grain elevator head or under the grain tank, and volume flow sensors were mounted at the head or in the middle of the elevator. Mass flow methods used weighing, force impact, and radiometric approaches, some of which resulted in measurement error levels lower than 5% ($R^2=0.99$). Volume flow methods included paddle wheel type and optical type, and in the best cases produced error levels lower than 3%. Grain moisture content sensing was in many cases achieved using capacitive modules. In some cases, errors were lower than 1%. Cutting width was measured by ultrasonic distance sensors mounted at both sides of the header dividers, and the errors were in some cases lower than 5%. Conclusions: The design and fabrication of an integrated yield monitoring system for a target crop would be affected by the selection of a sensing approach, as well as the layout and mounting of the sensors. For accurate estimation of yield, signal processing and correction measures should be also implemented.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.773-782
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• 2007

The statistical process control charts are very extensively used for monitoring of process mean, deviation, defect rate or reject rate. In this paper we consider a control chart to monitor the process reject rate in the high yield process, which is based on the observed cumulative probability of the number of items inspected until r defective items are observed. We first propose selection of the optimal value of r in the CPC-r charts, and also consider the usefulness of the chart in high yield process such as semiconductor or TFT-LCD manufacturing process.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.5_2
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• pp.617-620
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• 2017

The periodic monitoring of crop conditions and timely estimation of crop yield are of great importance for supporting agricultural decision-makings, as well as for effectively coping with food security issues. Remote sensing has been regarded as one of effective tools for crop condition monitoring and crop type classification. Since 2010, RDA (Rural Development Administration) has been developing technology for monitoring on crop condition using remote sensing and model. These special papers address recent state-of-the-art of remote sensing and geospatial technologies for providing operational agricultural information, such as, crop yield estimation methods using remote sensing data and process-oriented model, crop classification algorithm, monitoring and prediction of weather and climate based on remote sensing data,system design and architecture of crop monitoring system, history on rice yield forecasting method.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.103-109
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• 2018

Purpose: This study has been conducted to develop a potato yield monitoring system, consisting of a segmentation algorithm to detect potatoes scattered on a soil surface and a counting system to count the number of potatoes and convert the data from two-dimensional images to masses. Methods: First, a segmentation algorithm was developed using top-hat filtering and processing a series of images, and its performance was evaluated in a stationary condition. Second, a counting system was developed to count the number of potatoes in a moving condition and calculate the mass of each using a mass estimation equation, where the volume of a potato was obtained from its two-dimensional image, and the potato density and a correction factor were obtained experimentally. Experiments were conducted to segment potatoes on a soil surface for different potato sizes. The counting system was tested 10 times for 20 randomly selected potatoes in a simulated field condition. Furthermore, the estimated total mass of the potatoes was compared with their actual mass. Results: For a $640{\times}480$ image size, it took 0.04 s for the segmentation algorithm to process one frame. The root mean squared deviation (RMSD) and average percentage error for the measured mass of potatoes using this counting system were 12.65 g and 7.13%, respectively, when the camera was stationary. The system performance while moving was the best in L1 (0.313 m/s), where the RMSD and percentage error were 6.92 g and 7.79%, respectively. For 20 newly prepared potatoes and 10 replication measurements, the counting system exhibited a percentage error in the mass estimation ranging from 10.17-13.24%. Conclusions: At a travel speed of 0.313 m/s, the average percentage error and standard deviation of the mass measurement using the counting system were 12.03% and 1.04%, respectively.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.154-163
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• 2010

Process monitoring of output variables affecting final performance have been mainly executed in semiconductor manufacturing process. However, even earlier detection of causes of output variation cannot completely prevent yield loss because a number of wafers after detecting them must be re-processed or cast away. Semiconductor manufacturers have put more attention toward monitoring process inputs to prevent yield loss by early detecting change-point of the process. In the paper, we propose the method to efficiently monitor functional input variables in multi-phase semiconductor manufacturing process. Measured input variables in the multi-phase process tend to be of functional structured form. After data pre-processing for these functional input data, change-point analysis is practiced to the pre-processed data set. If process variation occurs, key variables affecting process variation are selected using contribution plot for monitoring efficiency. To evaluate the propriety of proposed monitoring method, we used real data set in semiconductor manufacturing process. The experiment shows that the proposed method has better performance than previous output monitoring method in terms of fault detection and process monitoring.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.397-401
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• 2008

Most of the topic in PCB industry was about increasing the volume of product for the development of electronics in numerous industrial application area. However, it has been emerged that yield improvement quality manufacturing via detecting any suspicious process in order to minimize the scrapped product and material waste. In addition, recently, restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) claims that electronic manufacturing environment should reduce the harmful chemicals usage, thus the importance of monitoring copper etchant and detecting any mis-processing is crucial for electronics manufacturing. In this paper, we have developed real-time chemical monitoring system using RGB sensor, which is simpler but more accurate method than commercially utilized oxidation reduction potential (ORP) technique. The developed Cu etchant monitoring system can further be utilized for copper interconnect process in future nano-semiconductor process.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers B
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.205-213
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• 2001

This paper presents a virtual instrumentation(VI) system for LIMs performance on-line monitoring. The VI is designed using the graphical programming language LabVIEW and is capable of performing on-line measurement functions, including data acquisition, display, and analyses in the time and frequency domains, as well as data archiving. To monitor in real time the steady-state and transient electromagnetic thrust of LIMs, the search coil is used for the determination of the flux linkage components, which is then multiplied by the appropriate current components to yield a signal proportional to the electromagnetic thrust. This paper reports the LIM's dynamics measured by the proposed on-line monitoring system.