Design and experiment of full-automatic lifting and releasing device of garlic seed box

Abstract: Garlic is one of the major cash crops in China, and it is mainly distributed in Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu Provinces. Single grain sowing is crucial for garlic planting, it needs to follow the agronomic requirements of root down and scaly bud upward, and therefore garlic planting mainly uses artificial means, but this method has shortcomings of strong labor intensity and low efficiency. Correspondingly, some developed countries like America and Korea have realized garlic planting mechanization in 1950-1960s, which have extensive arable land and indefinite requirement of garlic scaly bud direction when planting, and thus foreign garlic planting machinery is not suited to China's national conditions. In recent years, the garlic planter is developed towards automation and intelligence. However, existing garlic planter is hard to distinguish the direction of garlic scaly bud, and it also has complex structure and low efficiency. The scaly bud direction distinguishing is a core technology of garlic planter, and it is also the most difficult technical operation. Therefore, how to ensure direction of the garlic seed scaly bud in the process of planting has been a key technical problem of garlic planter. According to present condition, a full-automatic extraction and release device of garlic seed box was designed based on garlic seed box method, and it can automatically track driving according to the travel speed of machine. The full-automatic extraction and release device of garlic seed box consists of drive system, conveying device, extraction and release device, speed encoder, photoelectric sensor and MCU (micro-controller unit) system. The drive system consists of stepper motor, sprocket and chain, and it has 2 parts, and one provides transmission power for the whole machine walking, and the other controls conveying device working. The conveying device consists of conveying belt, roll shaft and bearing housing, the conveying belt is transversely mounted on the frame through roll shaft and bearing housing, and its working state is controlled by MCU system. The conveying device mainly carries out transverse transportation of garlic seed boxes. The extraction and release device consists of steering wheel, central actuator, mechanical arm, auxiliary actuator and manipulator, among which the manipulator consists of U shape rotating frame, L shape mounting panel, distance controlling actuator, special shaped gear disk, connecting rod, connecting arm and claws, and it mainly realizes the functions of garlic seed boxes precision capture, smooth traffic and seamless release. The velocity measurement encoder is used for detecting unit movement speed, and provides speed messages to central actuator and distance controlling actuator. The photoelectric sensor is used to detect whether the garlic box is in place. The garlic seed box planting method reduces the damage of garlic seed and improves work efficiency, and solves the problem of the direction of garlic seed. This paper designed mechanical arm and manipulator, the mathematical model of each key component was established through the theory analysis, and thus the structure and working parameters of mechanical arm and manipulator were determined. At the same time, the influence rule of the speed of device marching on operation parameters of mechanical arm and manipulator was proved, and the influencing factors of the clearance of adjacent garlic seed boxes were specified. The test was carried out for testing the influence of the speed of device marching on the clearance of adjacent garlic seed boxes after they were released. The results showed that when the speed of marching is 0.90 km/h, and the speeds of central actuator, auxiliary actuator and distance controlling actuator are 26.04, 26.04, and 13.89 r/min, respectively, the clearance of adjacent garlic seed boxes is less, which is 5.6 mm, and the release effect is better. The machine has better stability and release effect, and work efficiency of device has been improved obviously. The research results can provide reference for realizing automation of garlic planting.