Research and experiment of a novel flower transplanting device using hybrid-driven mechanism

Aiming at decreasing the component complexity and cost of flower transplanting machine,an integrated transplanting method for picking and planting flower seedlings was proposed,and a hybrid-driven five-bar parallel mechanism was designed.A“beak-shaped”trajectory was designed for integrated transplanting requirements,and meantime,either the posture requirements of transplanting claw were determined.Based on the transplanting trajectory of the mechanism,a corresponding mathematical model for solving the link parameters was established,and then the five-bar mechanism was divided into two bar groups,optimization was conducted in two steps based on genetic algorithm and NSGA-II algorithm.Consequently,the optimal solution of the hybrid-driven five-bar parallel mechanism for flower seedling transplanting was obtained.Compared with similar designs,the trajectory displacement of the proposed mechanism is larger in the condition of smaller link size,which indicates that the mechanism can effectively decrease the machine size.The real-time controllable motor angular acceleration fluctuation is smaller and the commutation times are less,which has the advantage of reducing the difficulty of the mechanism control system.Subsequently,the correctness of the design method is verified by kinematics simulation.Finally,the synchronous linkage motion control methods of the two motors were designed,a transplanting experiment of the prototype was carried out,the picking success rate had reached 90%-93.4%and transplanting success rate was 80.5%-86.9%during experiment,which showed that the integrated operation of picking and planting flower seedlings can be realized by the proposed mechanism.

Automatic Scallion Seedling Feeding Mechanism with an Asymmetrical High-order Transmission Gear Train

The current automatic scallion-transplanting machine is a complicated mechanism composed of two linkage mechanisms and two band carriers.It delivers seedlings ine ciently because of the movement limitations of the linkage mechanism.This paper proposes a new high-order non-circular gear train for an automatic scallion-seedling feeding mechanism.The proposed gear train has an asymmetrical transmission ratio;i.e.,its transmission ratio varies.This allows the mechanism’s execution component to move in a long displacement and rotate in a large rotation angle.The long displacement enables the execution component to reach the designed working position,and the large rotation angle allows it to feed a scallion in the required pose.A mathematical model for calculating the asymmetrical transmission ratio was established according to the closure requirements and the full-cycle motion of the driven gear pitch curve.Then,the parameter-design model of the new seedling-feeding mechanism was established,based on precise pose points and trajectory-shape control points.Moreover,an aided-design program was developed to obtain the parameter-solution domain of the scallion-seedling feeding mechanism.The mechanism parameters,which met the seedling-feeding function,were optimized to determine the transmission ratio,using a program and a kinematic simulation.Finally,a prototype of the mechanism was produced,and a seedling-feeding experiment was carried out.One-thousand seedlings were tested at a rate of 100 seedlings per minute,and the statistical success rate was 93.4%.Thus,the automatic scallion-seedling feeding mechanism significantly improves the e ciency of automatically transplanting scallions.

Design and experiment of double planet carrier planetary gear flower transplanting mechanism

At present,there is a lack of miniaturized and highly reliable plug seedling transplanting mechanism in flowerpots planting operation,in order to meet the needs of large displacement and high vertical uprightness for flower transplanting,the paper combined the transmission characteristics of the non-circular gear planetary gear train with the swing flexibility of the cam gear and proposed a double planet carrier planetary gear transplanting mechanism.The linkage of the mechanism performs variable speed rotation relative to the first planet carrier,the linkage serves as the second planet carrier,and the transplanting arm performs variable speed swing relative to the linkage.A mathematical model of a single planetary carrier mechanism was first established using the method of open linkage group solution domain synthesis,then established the kinematic equations of the second planet carrier and the transplanting arm.The two parts are combined to form the mathematical solution model of the proposed mechanism.The initial trajectory was planned according to the trajectory requirements of seedlings planting operation,the non-circular gear pitch curve in the first planet carrier was obtained and the length of the first planet carrier is 120 mm.Then using the key points’angular deviation between the initial trajectory and the improved trajectory to obtain the cam parameters which driving the transplant arm,consequently determined the length of the second planet carrier is 69.25 mm and the length of the transplant arm is 112.4 mm.Finally,the prototype of the mechanism was manufactured,and the test verified the correctness of the design method of the double planet carrier planetary gear flower potting transplanting mechanism.The transplanting success rate of this mechanism reached 94.43%,and the plug seedlings planted in flowerpots had high uprightness.This research can provide a reference for the automatic development of research on flower transplanting machines.