ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,414,489, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to PRECISION PLANTING LLC (Tremont, Ill.).
"Vision system" was invented by Nicholas Winkler (Gurnee, Ill.) and Jason J. Stoller (Eureka, Ill.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system comprising a boom, a plurality of nozzles disposed along the boom, a light disposed on the boom to illuminate a spray pattern from at least one nozzle, a camera disposed on the boom to capture a first image of a spray from the at least one nozzle at a first time and a second image of no spray from the at least one nozzle at a second time, and a processor to calculate a difference between the first time and second tim...