Design, development and evaluation of a mechatronic transmission system for upgrading performance of arow crop planter

摘要

One of the important of causes of non uniformity in seed spacing by planter is wheel slippage. Slippage is the result of low wheel traction on the land, land topography and high torque on wheel axis. Incorporating a system to decrease the friction inthe transmission system results in torque reduction on the wheel axis, hence increase the precision of planting. On the other hand, stepwise velocity of transmission of conventional gearboxes is a factor that constrain planter Calibration. In this searchfor decreasing the friction in transmission system and facilitating planter calibration, a mechatronics transmission system was designed and developed. System also incorporates an encoder coupled with a transducer to monitor forward velocity. A microprocessor for processing data and an electromotor for running metering system were also used. A similar mechanism with mechanical transmission was used as control. To obtain several slippage conditions, two different wheels (rubber tire and steel wheels) and two different soil preparation and residue management techniques were considered as treatments. Results of field evaluation show that mechatronics mechanism decreases Multiple Index. Higher percent in quality of feed index was obtained for planter equipped with mechatronics mechanism and rubber tire. The new system lowers both miss index and precision index which is desirable. Furthermore, adopting mechatronics mechanism on row crop planters illuminates the need for calibration