Ultrasonic base cutter height control - a report on 1992 season experiments

The presence of field soil in the cane supplied to sugar factories is generally acknowledged to be a significant cost to the Australian raw sugar industry. Results obtained from a series of field trials conducted by Henkel et al. (1979) indicated that the amount of dirt in the cane supply was influenced by the operating height of the base cutter of a chopper harvester. This suggested that automatic control of base cutter height might be an effective means of reducing the amount of dirt in cane. Reduced harvester fuel consumption, greater case of harvester operation and reduced stool damage were other possible advantages of an automatic system for the control of base cutter height. The aim of the work reported here was to evaluate the performance of a system for the automatic adjustment of the height of the base cutter of sugar cane harvesters.