US Patent Issued to Deere & Co. on July 21 for "Harvest readiness determination using drone with crop engaging component" (Illinois, Iowa Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,687,860, issued on July 21, was assigned to Deere & Co. (Moline, Ill.).

"Harvest readiness determination using drone with crop engaging component" was invented by Duane M. Bomleny (Geneseo, Ill.), Scott N. Clark (Bettendorf, Iowa), Nathan R. Vandike (Geneseo, Ill.) and Bradley K. Yanke (Eldridge, Iowa).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An agricultural system includes a drone controllable to exert force on a crop plant at a worksite, one or more harvest readiness sensors configured to detect one or more harvest readiness attributes after exertion of force on the crop plant and to generate harvest readiness sensor data indicative of the one or...