Design of Vegetable Pot Seedling Pick‑up Mechanism with Planetary Gear Train

It has been challenging to design seedling pick-up mechanism based on given key points and trajectories,because it involves dimensional synthesis and rod length optimization.In this paper,the dimensional synthesis of seedling pickup mechanism with planetary gear train was studied based on the data of given key points and the trajectory of the endpoint of seedling pick-up mechanism.Given the positions and orientations requirements of the five key points,the study first conducted a dimensional synthesis of the linkage size and center of rotation.The next steps were to select a reasonable solution and optimize the data values based on the ideal seedling trajectory.The link motion was driven by the planetary gear train of the two-stage gear.Four pitch curves of noncircular gears were obtained by calculating and distributing the transmission ratio according to the data.For the pitch curve with two convex points,the tooth profile design method of incomplete noncircular gear was applied.The seedling pick-up mechanism was tested by a virtual prototype and a physical prototype designed with the obtained parameter values.The results were consistent with the theoretical design requirements,confirming that the mechanism meets the expected requirements for picking seedlings up.This paper presents a new design method of vegetable pot seedling pick-up mechanism for an automatic vegetable transplanter.

Optimization design and test of rice plug seedling transplanting mechanism of planetary gear train with incomplete eccentric circular gear and non-circular gears

In order to solve the problem of the high-speed mechanized transplanting of rice plug seedlings,the design requirements of transplanting mechanism for rice plug seedlings were analyzed and a kind of rice plug seedling transplanting mechanism of planetary gear train based on the drive with incomplete eccentric circular gear and non-circular gears was designed innovatively.The laboratory kinematics was examined.The working principle of the transplanting mechanism for rice plug seedlings was studied,kinematics analysis of the transplanting mechanism was carried out and its kinematic model was set up.A human-computer interaction optimization method was used to optimize the parameters of the transplanting mechanism.The computer aided analysis and optimization software of the transplanting mechanism based on Visual Basic 6.0 was developed.Through analyzing the influence of design variables on the optimization objectives of the transplanting mechanism,a set of parameters of the transplanting mechanism which meet the requirements of transplanting trajectory and posture for transplanting rice seedlings were obtained by means of human-computer interaction.The structure of the transplanting mechanism was designed according to this set of parameters,and its virtual prototype and physical prototype were set up and manufactured,respectively.The kinematic simulation test and high-speed photography kinematic test of the transplanting mechanism were conducted to obtain its kinematic performances,such as transplanting trajectory and posture.The results of bench test,simulation analysis and theoretical analysis were almost in agreement,which verified the correctness of the theoretical model and design results of the transplanting mechanism,indicating that the optimized transplanting mechanism can satisfy the requirements of transplanting rice seedlings and be applied in the rice plug seedling transplanter.

Design and tests of a rotary plug seedling pick-up mechanism for vegetable automatic transplanter

The rotary plug seedling pick-up mechanism for vegetable automatic transplanter is the technical bottleneck to improve the mechanization level of vegetable planting in China.In order to solve the problems of rotary seedling pick-up mechanism proposed in previous study,such as low success ratio of seedling pick-up at high speed,and interference between the seedling bowl and the end of the other seedling pick-up arm,a novel kind of rotary seedling pick-up mechanism of planetary gear train with combined type gears of incomplete denatured-eccentric-circular and non-circular gears was proposed.Through kinematic analysis of the seedling pick-up mechanism,the kinematics model was established.The computer-aided analysis and optimization software with human-computer interaction method was developed to realize parameters optimization of the seedling pick-up mechanism.Three-dimensional parametric design system of seedling pick-up mechanisms with combined non-circular gear transmission was developed for mechanism virtual simulation to verify the correctness of theoretical model and design results of the mechanism.The physical prototype of the mechanism was manufactured,and high-speed camera kinematics tests of the mechanism were conducted in the laboratory to study its kinematic characteristics.Laboratory seedling pick-up tests were carried out.The mechanism has the success ratio of seedling pick-up 96.3%without interference during seedling transporting when the rotation speed of the mechanism is 50 r/min and the seedling transplanting efficiency is 100 plants/min per row,showing that the novel mechanism has better working performance than the original one and could be applied in vegetable plug seedling transplanter.