Development and evaluation of a low-cost precision seeding control system for a corn drill

Abstract

Precision seeding requires that the corn drill drop seeds into the soil by a specific in-row spacing while its travelling speed fluctuates due to unevenness of the field ground. This paper presents a low-cost precision seeding control system for a conventional corn drill with mechanical metering devices of finger-pickup type. A median filtering method was implemented in the control system to process measurements from a rotary encoder in order to acquire stable values of the corn drill travelling speed. The metering unit was driven by an electric motor controlled by the metering ECU according to the actual travelling speed and the desired in-row spacing in real-time. A user interface was programmed to communicate with ECUs for configuring parameters and displaying operating information during working. The newly-developed precision seeding control system was first calibrated in terms of speed measurement and control for two ECUs. Experiments were conducted on a seeding test platform in the laboratory for evaluating its accuracy in dropping seeds by giving different in-row spacing under different travelling speeds of the conveyor sticky belt. Results showed that the average spacing error was less than 2 cm and the maximum RMS error was 0.78 cm for all spacing values including 25 cm, 30 cm and 35 cm under the travelling speed of 1.0-8.0 km/h. These indicated that the low-cost precision seeding control system worked in a both accurate and stable way.

Design and Experiment of a Wheel Precision Seed-Metering Device with Cells for Corn

“…The proposed cell wheel seed-metering device for corn was tested in accordance with the Testing methods of single seed drills (precision drills) (GB/T 6973-2005) with rotational speed of the seed-metering device, hole diameter of the seed plate, and hole pitch of the seed plate as the independent variables. Response values were the qualification index, miss-seeding index, and reseeding index [23][24][25]. The test was carried out in the Agricultural Machinery Laboratory of Northwest Agriculture & Forestry University using a self-made cell wheel precision seed-metering device, as shown in Fig.…”

Sowing uniformity of bed-type pneumatic maize planter at various seedbed preparation levels and machine travel speeds

“…As the previous crop residues and soil clods blocked the furrow opener and the seed movement in the metering system was under the effect of pneumatic pressure, thus could not place its required position [3] . The reduction in sowing uniformity of the pneumatic planter is probably a combination of several factors including negative pressure, metering system, delivery system, feel plate speed, tillage methods and forward speed [3,10,12,16,19,26] . The missing index increased with the increase of the forward speed.…”

“…Various studies were conducted to design and evaluate the performance of the pneumatic planting system [4][5][6][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] . Yang et al [3] reviewed the research progress and development of precision maize planters and concluded that the usage, modification and improvement in the pneumatic planter depended upon the geophysical and climatic crop requirements.…”

“…Jia et al [19] conducted a study to overcome the unfavorable factors of ground wheel-driven chain transmission when a no-tillage planter was operated on straw mulching fields with a friction wheel transmission. Moreover, the driving system for seed meters is changed from ground-wheel and chain-sprocket to electrical motor to drive precision seed unit that can change the rotational speed of metering unit with respect to forward traveling thus to eliminate the effects of ground-wheel slippage on sowing quality and get more uniform seed spacing [16] . In addition, a seed delivery system that transports seeds from seed meter to seed-bed is being developed to prevent the bump and skip between seeds and seed-tube, and as a result to maintain the uniformity of seed distribution [2,12,20] .…”

An Attempt to Evaluate the Performance Parameters of a Precision Vacuum Seeder in Different Seed Drop Height

“…Bakhtiari and Ahmad (2017) designed a vacuum seed metering unit for single-seed planting of kenaf plant and developed it based on the physical and aerodynamic properties of the seeds. Yin et al (2018) showed that the low-cost precision planting control system they developed to control the seed spacing in corn planting works accurately and consistently.…”