Patents

Patent Number: US 12,359,958 B2

Description: The granted patent covers the bin level monitoring system as a whole: a volumetric optical sensor (LIDAR or ToF) suspended inside the bin by a mounting bracket that hangs on the collar of the fill lid, a circuit board in a magnet-mounted roof enclosure with solar charging and a cellular radio, and the reporting of bin level data to a server that can automatically order more feed.

Application number: PCT/CA2024/050071 (published as WO2024168419A1).

Date filed: January 24, 2024.

Overview: Training images of many different feed topologies are captured with a depth-map sensor such as a time-of-flight camera and used to train an artificial neural network. The resulting model discriminates between the bin wall and the surface of the material, so the wall can be computationally removed and the remaining surface fitted to a 3D model of the bin.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/000034.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: In a multi-bin feed system, feed is drawn from one bin at a time and the slide gates have to be switched over as bins empty. This invention covers monitoring the state of the bins and the slides together, then determining when a slide should be swapped, and detecting when a swap that should have happened has not. That determination drives an alert or an automated action before the barn runs out of feed.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/000015.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: Obstructions inside a bin, such as structural members, bin sweeps, ladders, or cobwebs, sit between the sensor and the material and corrupt the depth data behind them. The invention identifies an obstruction by discriminating obstruction height data from material height data, removes that data, infers replacement height data, and substitutes it to produce a clean height map of the material in the bin.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/000036.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: A depth-map sensor mounted in the bin roof cannot see the entire feed surface: parts of the surface fall outside its field of view, and other parts have to be cut out because an obstruction was removed. This invention uses radial basis functions to extrapolate the topology of the missing regions from the surface that was captured, producing a complete height map and therefore a complete volume calculation.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/051083.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: Covers a sensor system in which one or more direct time-of-flight sensors are held in a bin by a bracket: an emitter sends a pulse of light, a receiver captures the reflection off the material surface, and a processor computes the distance to each point to determine the level in the bin. It covers both single-sensor and multi-sensor arrangements.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/000016.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: This filing pairs a conventional colour (RGB) camera with the time-of-flight camera in a single sensor system, so that colour imagery and depth data of the bin interior are captured together and can be combined: higher-fidelity images of the material, colour-mapped 3D renderings, and an additional data channel alongside the depth map.

Application number: PCT/CA2026/051069.

Date filed: August 28, 2026.

Overview: A sensor capsule is held by a bracket inside a tubular shutter that a motor rotates around it. Rotation drags a wiper across the optical windows to clean them, and can move the windows between an operating position and a sealed storage position that protects them between readings. An optional sweeper attached to the shutter clears cobwebs near the sensor as it turns.