摘要
This paper describes the development of an automated metering mechanism for vegetable transplanter.It consisted of a 3-DOF serial robotic arm and an automatic feeding conveyor.The robotic arm was developed to pick and drop tomato seedlings raised in biodegradable paper pots.The volume of each pot was 50 cm^(3)(3.5 cmdiameter and 5.2 cmheight)with a maximumtotalweight of 47 g including potmix and seedling.Amatrix type feeding conveyorwas developed to convey the pot seedlings to a predefined positionwhere the robotic armcould pick up these seedlings one by one.LDR(Light Dependent Resistor)-LED(Light Emitting Diode)sensing unit was used to perform the intermittent movement of the conveyor.The developed system was evaluated under both laboratory and field conditions.The robotic arm was able to pick and drop 20 seedlings per minute and its effective cycle time per handling one seedling was varying from 2.5 to 3.1 s.Power consumption of the conveyor of the developed system and the robotic arm was 18 W and 16 W,respectively.The conveying,metering and overall efficiency of the developed metering mechanism under laboratory condition were 96.83%,95.91%and 92.86%,respectively as compared to 94.7%,93.28%and 88.33%,under field condition.The developed robotic armbasedmeteringmechanismwas simple,light inweight and effectively handled the pot seedlings without damage and would thus help in mechanizing transplanting of vegetable seedlings.
基金
support received from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR),Ministry of Agriculture,Govt.of India(Agri.Engg.27(4)/2015-AE)to carry out this research work is sincerely acknowledged.
