• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.761-767
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• 1993

A precision planting system using computer controlled technology for mulching cultivation was developed and tested . The system consisting of a micro-computer, several optical fiber sensors and control actuators realized the mechanization of the precision planting operation. The film hole positions, existences of a seed on shutter were detected and the planting speed was measured. The shutter opening mechanism and a seed metering device driven by a stepping motor were controlled, automatically . The planting timing of the shutter opening mechanism were analyzed from a video camera motion analysis, theoretically. The results showed a sufficient accuracy of a seed planted into the center a film hole with a variety of planting speeded. The gravity point positions in film hole of seeds planted by the system just were within the area of +-5mm of the hole center when the hole diameter was 40mm.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.83-93
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• 2008

In order to save labor and cost, direct seeding has been considered as an important alternative to the machine transplanting in rice cultivation. Current direct seeding machines for rice in Korea drill irregularly under various operating conditions. This study was conducted to develope a precision seeder which enables the accurate, even-spaced in row placement of rice seeds at uniform depths of 3-4 cm on dry paddy. Design, construction and performance evaluation of the precision seeder were carried out. The tractor rear-mounted type 8-rows precision seeder which performs seeding in addition to fertilizing, ditching, and rotary tilling works on dry paddy was developed. Main components of the seeder were ditcher and leveller, rotary tiller, powered roller type furrow opener, seeding device, powered roller type furrow covering and firming device, hydraulic unit, seeding speed control system, power transmission system, hitch and frame. Ditching, furrow opening, and seed covering and firming performances were good and seeding depths of 2-4 cm could be maintained. Planting accuracies and planting precisions were within 13.6%, and 31.2%, respectively, for planting space of 15 cm, and seeding velocity of 0.5 m/s. These mean variations of average planting space were within 2.1 cm, and 90% of seeds in a hill were seeded within 4.7 cm of hill length, respectively. Error ratios between setting planting space and measured average planting space were shown within 6.7%. Therefore the seeder showed good planting performance up to seeding velocity of 0.5 m/s in field tests. And field capacity of the seeder was about 0.28 ha/hour.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.217-223
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• 2008

In this study, a garlic clove planter which is capable of planting holes in soil and planting a clove at the same time was designed and tested for film mulched beds. Planting characteristics of the planter were measured through field experiment. Some characteristics were analyzed with multibody dynamic simulation software. Simulation was performed on opening time of the planting hopper. Measured characteristics were position, angle, and reposition amount of garlic in sowing hole. Experiment results showed that the planted position of garlic in planting was 23.0 mm from the hole wall. The reposition amount of garlic was varied with its position and angle when the planted garlic was pressed by an angled compaction wheel. In case of type II position, the position movement of garlic was larger than type I. Average position movement of type II was 11.5 mm at $20^{\circ}$ of compaction wheel angle. These data suggest that cutting diameter of film opening must be larger than 33 mm to provide enough space for garlic sprouting. Also, simulation results showed that the maximum opening time of the planting hopper was 0.26 second.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.313-318
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• 2016

Purpose: This study measured and analyzed the PTO (power take off) torque of a transplanter according to the planting conditions during field operation. Methods: A torque measurement system was constructed with torque sensors to measure the torque of a PTO shaft, a measurement device to acquire sensor signals, and a power controller to provide power for a laptop computer. The field operation was conducted at four planting distances (26, 35, 43, and 80 cm) and two planting depths using the transplanter on a field with similar soil conditions. One-way ANOVA with planting distance and Duncan's multiple range test at a significance level of 0.05 were used to analyze the PTO torque. The torque ratio was calculated based on the minimum torque using the average PTO torque measured under each planting condition. Results: The average torques on the PTO shaft for planting distances of 26, 35, 43, and 80 cm at a low planting depth were 11.05, 9.07, 7.04, and 3.75 Nm, respectively; the same for planting distances of 26, 35, 43, and 80 cm at a middle planting depth were 12.20, 9.86, 7.94, and 4.32 Nm, respectively. When the planting distance decreased by 43, 35, and 26 cm, the torque ratio at a low planting depth increased by 88, 142, and 195%, respectively. When the planting distance decreased by 43, 35, and 26 cm, the torque ratio at the middle planting depth increased by 84, 128, and 182%, respectively. Conclusions: PTO torque fluctuated by planting distance and depth. Moreover, the PTO torque increased for short planting distances. Therefore, farmers should determine the planting conditions of the transplanter by considering the load and durability of the machine. The results of this study provide useful information pertaining to the optimum PTO design of the transplanter considering the field load.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.525-534
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• 2001

Garlic clove planting is one of the most laborious operations in Korean farming. The garlic planting has been done manually; therefore, it requires tremendous amounts of human labor resulting in the increase of production cost. This problem necessitated the development of a garlic clove metering device fur the planter. The device was fabricated to meter a single garlic clove with a scooping bucket(29mm in diameter and 8mm in depth) designed after the image of clove's bottom shape. The lift angle of the metering plate and the magnitude of vibration were also affected the metering performance. The angle clove metering rates ranged 95.4~96.7% with the missing rate of 0.0~1.3% at the 80~85 degrees of the tilt angle and vibration level 2(1.985 m/s$^2$).

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 1994

Planting, transplanting, and harvesting are important processes for the successful production of farm products in Korea because those require the high labor intensity during limitted period. Recently, many researches of using automatic control with a microcomputer are carried in the agricultural field, but are not much spread to the seeder development. Automatic sowing technology would be much attractive if there was a way to assure that each seed was count accurately in the seed metering device. Thus, an automatic seed metering device was designed and constructed to be controlled by microcomputer. This device could be improved in not only counting the number of seeds in but also sowing seeds between row spacings. Automatic seed metering device consisted of conveyor belt and temporary storage device. Performance of seed metering device depends on the apparatus including sensor, stepping motor and DC-solenoid. Research contents and results are summarized as follows. 1. The seed metering device involving seed hopper, sorter and temporary storage device was designed and constructed. 2. A seed counting system with six photo electric sensors, designed and built for this project, was adequate for tranferring and counting seeds accurately. 3. Operating algorithm for stepping motor and photo electric DC-solenoid was developed. The Seed metering device proved to be a smooth and accurate operating device using the algorithm. 4. The performance of second prototype metering device was examined with five kinds of seeds ; mung beans, red beans, white beans, black beans and corn to transfer and count the seeds. The error ratio of seed metering was less than 3.5%.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.3-9
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• 1996

Sowing with an automatic seed metering device is increasing in popularity. Since 100% planting is not likely, a major problem is to find any place which contains no seeds between row spacings in the agricultural field. Automatic sowing technology, including the implementation of a microcomputer, appears to be an attractive alternative to the use of manual labor for accomplishing this task. Thus, the multi-purpose seeder attached to a cultivator was designed and constructed with an automatic seed metering device. This seeder proved to be a reliable system for sowing seeds in the agricultural field. Multi-purpose seeder for cultivator consists of an automatic seed metering device, a trench device, a covering device, and a press wheel

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.123-133
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• 1996

An automatic drum seeder was developed to improve the seeding operation. It consisted of a conveyor to transfer seedling trays, a seed-hopper to supply seeds, a drum to drop seeds on the tray, and an air blower to remove extra seeds. A photo sensor was used to detect the transfer of seedling trays, and its signal was fed into microcomputer which operated a stepping motor driving the drum. The seeds were adhered to the surface of drum by vacuum pressure, and were dropped into tray cells by compressed air. An air connection unit was devised to alternate between vacuum pressure and compressed air. A control program for the system, written in C language, could operate the drum at the given number of revolutions and revolutions per minute. The results showed that the air connection unit could operate well and the seeds were dropped satisfactorily into tray cells. In case of cabbage and perilla seeds, which are regular and spherical shape, the missing rate was low and the single seeding rate was more than 97%. Low missing rate and high multiple seeding rate were observed in lettuce seeds which have narrow ends with tight weight. The missing rate of pepper seed was very high because of heavy weight and irregular shape. To improve the performance of the seeder, adjustment of vacuum pressure based upon shape and weight of the seeds, careful selection of the material of drum, maintenance of consistent air blower pressure, and replacement of stepping motor to DC motor are recommended.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.277-284
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• 1998

This study was conducted to develop m automatic pot-seedling transplanter for plant factory. The transplanter consists of a gripper, row-spacing control device, nursing tray transfer system, growing trough transfer system, and gripper moving device. The gripper picks up pot-seedling. The gripper moving device moves the gripper between nursing tray and growing-flat. Nursing trays are moved to workspace by the nursing tray transfer system. The growing trough transfer system was developed to move growing trough to workspace. The row-spacing control device was used to adjust the distance between adjacent plants traversely. The results of this study are as follows. The transplanting capacity of the developed transplanter was 7.1 seconds per cycle or 1.18 second per pot-seedling. Successful planting was 98.9% without seedlings and 95.8% with seedlings.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.48-57
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• 1979

In order to obtain a standard reference for designing an adequate power rice transplanter, the cutting forces depending upon variety of seedling, sowing density, seedling age and soil moisture content of mat-type seedling were measured by the rice transplanter installed with force measuring device of dynamic strain gage system in the laboratory. The result of this study are summarized as follows : 1. Cutting velocity and acceleration transplanting hoe obtained from jinematic analysis of planting mechanism was 1.32m/sec and 81.5m/$sec^2$ when planting crank-shaft rpm was 160. 2. Little difference between cutting forces on 30-days old seelings of japonica and Indica type was observed, as the cutting forces determined were 2.0kg per hill for Japonica type and 2.1kg per hill for Indica type. 3. Cutting forces determined on 40-days old seedlings were 2.5kg, 2.3kg, 3.1kg and 2.9kg per hill for Milyang No.15, Tongil, Akibare and Milyang No.23 compared to the other varieties. 4. The cutting force was not greatly affected by the sowing densities , only five percent of differences were observed epending upon the sowing densities. 5. Cutting forces were 2.7kg and 2.0kg per hill on 40-days old seedlings and 30-days old seedlings respectively. About 38 percent of more forces was required in cutting 40-days old seedling than in cutting 30-days old seedlings. 6. More cutting forces were required as soil moisture content of mat-type seedling was decreased. 7. Root length after cutting by the planting hoe and their relationships with soil moisture content on 30-days old seedlings, are as follows ; $y=4.147-11.384x+ 28.854x^2$ where , $y$=root length after cutting. (cm) , $x$=soil ture content of mat type seedlings.(%, d.b.) 8. Cutting forces were varied with the width of cuttings ; those on 40-days old mat type seedlings were 2.7kg and 2.2kg per hill when cutting with 14 mm and 10mm of width respectively, about 32 percent of more forces was required when cuting with 14mm of width compared to 10mm of width.