Automatic Transplanting Equipment for Chain Pot Seedlings in Shaft Tillage Cultivation

Abstract

The study aims to develop automatic transplanting equipment for chain pot seedlings. We intend to practice the shaft tillage cultivation using an autonomous farming robot. We had developed an autonomous working vehicle and automatic transplanting equipment for plug seedlings used in shaft tillage cultivation. To reinforce the robot system’s versatility, we developed transplanting equipment for the chain pot seedlings. We experimentally investigated the transplanting performance. Approximately 84% of the seedlings were automatically transplanted using the developed equipment. Since the equipment was performed well in the failure samples, we assumed that the cause of such failures was attributed to seedling quality. In addition, we measured the power consumption of the equipment used to build an electrical power supply system. Consequently, we calculated the power requirements for each process. Compared with the plug seedling equipment developed in the previous study, the chain pot seedlings’ power requirement was lower because the conveying actions of seedlings were different. In the next stage of our research, to construct a fully automatic system, we will consider the seedling raising method in which seedlings can become uniformly high-quality and investigate the plant establishment performance using the developed equipment.