Development and assessment of belt-drive seedlings transmission device for fully-automatic vegetable transplanter

• Published in: Computers and electronics in agriculture Vol. 182; p. 105958
• Main Authors: Yang, Qizhi, Ahmad, Ibrar, Faheem, Muhammad, Siddique, Bushra, Xu, Hu, Addy, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01-03-2021; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Actuators; Automatic control; Automatic transmissions; Belt drives; Cups; Cylinder liners; Fully-automatic transplanting; Linear belt drive; Photoelectricity; PLC control; Plug seedlings; Seedling transmission; Stepping motors; Vegetables; Plug seedlings; Linear belt drive; Fully-automatic transplanting; Seedling transmission; PLC control
• ISSN: 0168-1699; 1872-7107
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compag.2020.105958

•Belt drive seedling device designs for fully- automatic vegetable transplanter.•The central control unit contains PLC to manipulate mechanisms of the device.•We adopt spatial analyzer to evaluate positioning error of seedling cups.•60 seedlings per minute and 95% success transplanting rate achieve at frequency of 1500 Hz.
The planting section of vegetable cultivation system practiced in China is moving rapidly in the direction of computerized transplanting. While seedlings metering device is considered a bottleneck in sense of its application in tunnel farming. Therefore, a novel type of belt drive seedlings transmission device has been designated by considering the requirements of fully-automatic transplanter. Further, the control system of device has also realized in this investigation. The overall assemblage of the device consisted of a supporting frame, linear belt actuator equipped with 57HS22 stepping motor, cups assembly, two photoelectric sensors, brake wires, pneumatic air cylinder, and linear slider rail. The positioning accuracy examination at delivery points and the success transmission rate assessment of the linear transmission device were carried out at different frequencies of the motor. The outcomes of positioning accuracy examination indicated that positioning error at both delivery points was gradually increasing with gradual increment in motor frequency. The maximum positioning error was 7.26 mm at the maximum corresponding frequency of 1600 Hz which satisfied the requirement of cups position. The required value of 60 seedlings per minute was achieved at the frequency of 1500 Hz and corresponding success transplanting rate was also 95%. Base on experimental outcomes indicated that this design structure meets the requirements of the seedling transmission at the pulse frequency of 1500 Hz.