Abstract

New laser rangefinder scanners were developed specifically for drivers’ assistance and autonomous guiding in road vehicles.
These sensor systems were tested in the past years regarding the potential for agricultural engineering purposes. In a first part of the paper a 2D laser rangefinder scanner was tested for detecting round bales on a harvested field from winter rye. In a second part the laser scanner was used for modelling crop stands and measuring crop biomass in winter wheat (R²=0.96) and maize (R²=0.95). In a third part, it was demonstrated that the height of the reflection point increased in a considerable manner depending on the detecting angle of the laser beam; resulting in an overestimation of crop height respectively of crop biomass.