Design and experiment of electronic seeding system based on response surface method

ABSTRACT

A new electronic seeding device was designed for large-sized seeds, such as soybean, corn, and peanuts, that supports an independent electronic-controlled seeding process. The developed seeding device consists of a programmable logic controller, pulse generator, stepper motor, and stepper motor driver. Based on the Box–Behnken Design model, the effects of different factors on the plant spacing control were analyzed, and the control parameters of the seeding system were optimized by correlation analysis. Through performance tests, the results of the research showed that the coefficient of variation of plant spacing was found to be affected by the interaction between shaft speed and belt speed, in which the belt speed was dominant. And the optimal control conditions by using Box–Behnken Design model are as follows: the seed shaft speed was 0.60 r/s, the soybean hundred-grain weight was 22 g, and the belt speed was 1.5 m/s. The results of the experiments showed that the socket-roller seeding device successfully completed the seeding test, and its performance index was in accord with the applicable standards for single grain precision seeding equipment.

KEYWORDS:

• Intelligent Agricultural
• mathematic model
• space control
• seeding system

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” position scientists specific of China Agriculture Research System (Grant No. CARS-04-PS25). Furthermore, the authors would sincerely thank the reviewers for their very professional suggestions on this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

A statement of contribution

Zhang KF and Zhang Z participated in the design of this study, and they both performed the statistical analysis. Zhang KF carried out the study and collected important background information. Zhang Z drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Wang S carried out the concepts, design, literature search, data acquisition, data analysis and manuscript preparation. Yang C provided assistance for data acquisition, data analysis and statistical analysis. Yu YC carried out literature search, data acquisition and manuscript editing. Li H performed manuscript review. All authors have read and approved the content of the manuscript. All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study; (2) drafting the article for intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be submitted.