INMATEH - Agricultural Engineering

21-36

Authors: Ping ZHAO, Tiankuo YU, Guofa XU, Ruijin GUO, He LI, Hongfei XU, Tianci JIN, Dong JI

Taking into account the physicochemical properties of soil and the complexity of adhesion interface, how to improve the soil adhesion on the mechanical surface is a crucial technical issue. In order to lower the increasing resistance caused by soil adhesion on the surface of a digging shovel in potato harvesting, a potato digging shovel with a non-smooth surface structure was designed based on bionics theory. Based on testing physical and mechanical properties of soil, a soil groove model corresponding to soil physical properties and particle model physical properties was established through a combination of simulation and physical tests, and a simulation test for evaluating the drag reduction performance was conducted. The simulation comparison test results show that the performance of the bionic digging shovel is better than that of the traditional potato digging shovel, regardless of whether the broken soil rate or the working resistance is reduced, and the soil adhered to the mechanical surface can be effectively reduced by 93.3%. The research results can provide ideas and methods for solving the adhesion problem between machinery and soil.

46-56

Authors: Junming HOU, Zhaotan REN, Hongjie ZHU, Zhi RENDE, Wei WANG

Castor is one of the important oil crop, the shelling process of which directly affects the quality of castor seeds. In the process of shelling, the shelling force of castor is an important index to study its damage. The castor capsule model was established and the shelling test machine was established based on the discrete element method. Then the extrusion law of castor capsule during shelling was analyzed. The shelling process is divided into three stages, which are the Initial stage, stable shelling stage and the final stage. The force law of shelling process is analyzed. The results show that with the increase of rotating speed, the maximum force decreases from 68.78 to 68.10 N, the maximum speed increases from 8.92 to 12.99 m/s, the force of inner drum increases from 509.34 to 533.14 N, and then decreases to 456.15 N. The shelling increases from 91.23% to 91.28%, and then decreases to 88.89%. With the increase of filling amount, the maximum force increases from 55.86 to 76.93 N, the maximum speed decreases from 12.99 to 10.86 m/s, the force of inner drum increases from 338.58 to 603.364 N, and the shelling rate changes from 91% to 90.05%. This study can provide theoretical support for the design of castor shelling machine.

66-75

Authors: Andrés Rodríguez Toscano, Rafael Ramirez, José M. Sánchez

This research presents a thermodynamic analysis of a Thermal LTC-10 single-effect absorption series cooling system using the water/LiBr pair. Four operating scenarios were modeled on an hourly basis (24h) with EES software using mass and energy balances and the environmental conditions of the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. The analysis of the results shows that the system powered only by solar energy obtains the highest COP between 8:00 and 16:00 hours and the lowest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while the system powered by rice husk biogas presents stable operation throughout the day and higher SO2eq emissions.

86-95

Authors: Hongwen YAN, Zhiwei HU, Yiran LIU

To explore the application of traditional machine learning model in the intelligent management of pigs, in this paper, the influence of the PCA pre-treatment on pig face identification with KNN is studied. With testing method, individual identification test was carried out on 10 different pigs in two testing schemes, in which one adopted KNN alone and the other adopted PCA + KNN, for which the classifier parameter was taken as 3 and 5, respectively. In the optimized scheme, the operating efficiency got significantly increased, also the training time and testing time were reduced to 4.8% and 7% of the original value in the KNN alone scheme, though the accuracy got lowered to a certain extent. With all these factors taken into consideration, PCA pre-treatment is beneficial to individual pig identification with KNN. It can provide experimental support for mobile terminals and embedded application of KNN classifiers.

107-116

Authors: Bin WANG, Hua YANG, Lili LI

In order to realize the rapid and accurate identification of different maturity of Cerasus humilis fruit, this study explored the nondestructive testing method of Cerasus Humilis fruit maturity based on hyperspectral imaging technology. The hyperspectral data of 320 samples of Cerasus humilis fruit were collected by using a hyperspectral imaging system in the range of 895~1700 nm. By comparing the prediction accuracy of the partial least squares (PLS) model established by four preprocessing methods, the competitive adaptive reweighted algorithm (CARS), successive projection algorithm (SPA), and random frog (RF) were used to extract characteristic wavelengths, and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) and least squares-support vector machine (LS-SVM) discriminant models were established. The results showed that the SPA-LS-SVM model had the highest discrimination accuracy for the four types of maturity samples, and the discrimination accuracy of the correction set and prediction set were 85.00% and 87.50%, respectively. This study provides a theoretical reference for the rapid and nondestructive testing of the maturity of Cerasus Humilis fruit by hyperspectral imaging technology.

127-136

Authors: Jingxin SUN, Liqin YANG, Baohui XU, Yuming GUO

In order to meet the precision seeding of small seeds including millet and broomcorn millet in hilly and mountainous areas, a single-row small grain precision seeder was developed. Static seeding test and seeding test were carried out on the seeder. In this paper, the key parts such as socket wheel-ring groove seed metering device, transmission system and tensioning wheel are designed. The working parts such as arrow shovel furrow opener, plastic seed tube and hollow cast iron press wheel were selected to achieve seed metering. The seed metering wheel has double-row of holes. The results of static seeding test showed that rotational speed had a significant effect on the sowing quantity of millet and broomcorn millet (P < 0.001). The higher the rotational speed, the greater the sowing quantity. With the increase of rotational speed of seed metering wheel, the damage rate of millet and broomcorn millet increased. At the same rotational speed, the breakage rate of broomcorn millet is smaller than that of millet. The field sowing test showed that when the seeder is at a marching speed of about 0.5 m/s, the qualified rate of the hole spacing of millet and broomcorn millet is greater than or equal to 90%, and the qualified rate of the number of grains per hole is greater than or equal to 82%. All indicators meet the requirements of the technical conditions of single-grain (precision) seeder. The design can provide reference for the design and optimization of small grain precision seeder.

147-154

Authors: Mariana- Gabriela MUNTEANU, Gheorghe VOICU, Gabriel-Alexandru CONSTANTIN, Elena –Mădălina STEFAN, Paula TUDOR, Mihaela NITU

This paper presents an analysis of the variation of energy consumption in the lamination and drawing process of bagel doughs. Also, the paper highlights the farinographic characteristics (water absorbtion, dough develpomnet time, dough stability, degree of dough softening and farinographic index) of the floour used for the dough preparation for which the energy consumption during lamination and drawing was determined

165-172

Authors: Wenhao DOU, Sanmin SUN, Pengxiang XU

This paper evaluates linear regression analysis, BP neural network, and a random forest prediction model for the prediction of jujube water demand. The results highlight that the R2 of the random forest is 0.941 and the residual distribution is the most stable. Hence, the random forest is more suitable for prediction, and therefore, an intelligent irrigation system is established employing random forest, where the cloud server is the upper computer and a Raspberry Pi is the lower computer, and at the same time, a PC and a mobile interface was built to present various information about the developed irrigation system.

181-190

Authors: Juan LIU, Zhuoyu YAN, Mingze XU, Yudi LIU, XueWei BAI, Yonghai XIU, DeSheng WEI

Coconut coir dust and corn stover powder were taken as raw biomass materials for pellet production, using four uni-axial compression set-ups, to explore the influence of the diameter of the inner hole diameter of the cylinder, the depth in compression , and the depth remained in compaction on the pellet density. Sample of pellets produced at the force steady phase, the maximum pellet density of the coconut coir dust material is 1.53 g/cm3 (1530 kg/m3), and 1.23 g/cm3 (1230 kg/m3) of the corn stalk powder pellets are obtained, At the same time, in the process of the test, Failure to compress the two biomass raw materials into pellets also occurred, indicating that the compression parameters studied in the experiment had a significant impact on the pellet quality. On the basis of the obtained pelleting test data, taking into account the nonlinear characteristics between pellet density and processing parameters involved, the adaptive neuro-fuzzy influence system(ANFIS) method was used to predict the pellet density of coconut coir dust and corn stover powder. The results show that the method is effective for predicting the density of biomass particles.

201-210

Authors: Tomasz ŻELAZIŃSKI, Adam EKIELSKI, Karol DURCZAK, Magdalena MORAWSKA

The paper presents the results of research on film biocomposites made of thermoplastic starch (TPS) and various types of nut shells. The research involved the use of thermally treated nut shells: hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts and peanuts. TPS biocomposites were produced by the pour method using non-adherent moulds. The obtained samples were used to test the basic physical properties used in testing biodegradable materials. The following parameters were determined: mechanical strength, colour and colour difference, water contact angle, moisture absorption from water and atmospheric air. Images of biocomposite fractures were also taken using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). It was found that the addition of nut shells enabled the production of homogeneous materials and contributed to the improvement of their strength parameters. The research showed that nut shells can be a prospective raw material for the production of innovative biodegradable materials.

221-231

Authors: Xin WANG, Guohai ZHANG, Jia YAO, Jitan LIAN, Xining YANG

The corn grain harvester serves as an example of complex farming machinery with a condition monitoring system that collects a lot of working condition data, making it challenging to identify the true change pattern due to the data coming from the equipment in various states. Firstly, the overall structure of the corn grain harvester is analyzed, and the common causes and mechanisms of corn grain harvester failures are analyzed, leading to the cutting table as the main research object; Secondly, by collecting historical failure data of corn grain harvester as well as real-time failure information for collation and pre-processing, eliminating interference such as noise and missing data, establishing a failure matrix, extracting internal characteristics between failure causes and establishing a mapping between failure causes and failure phenomena; Finally, the future failure phenomena of the corn grain harvester are predicted according to different failure causes. The simulation analysis results show that the self-coding neural network fault prediction model can better predict the occurrence probability and types of faults and provide data support for fault maintenance and decision making of agricultural machinery.

239-250

Authors: Qichao LI, Jinlong FENG, Xianglan MING

In order to improve the opener of the seeder and its lightweight structure, a new type of opener is designed. The overall structure and working principle of a single-ditch double-row opener are analyzed, and the structural parameters of machete cutting soil and the soil guide board are designed and optimized. Using the penetration angle of machete cutting soil and the included angle of the soil guide board as test factors, field experiments were conducted. As the test indexes, the working resistance, the sowing coefficient of variation, and the depth coefficient of variation were used to analyze the effect of the opener. The results showed that in terms of working resistance, the penetration angle of the machete cutting edge and the included angle of the soil guide board were extremely significant, and the included angle was greater than the penetration angle regarding the influence degree. In terms of the sowing coefficient of variation, the penetration angle was significant, and the included angle was extremely significant. Regarding the depth coefficient of variation, the penetration angle was extremely significant, and the included angle of the guide soil board was significant. Based on the optimization analysis by using the Design Expert 8.0.6, it is found that the performance of the opener is optimal when the penetration angle and the included angle are 50.03° and 42.36°, respectively. The working resistance, the sowing coefficient of variation, and the depth coefficient of variation are 61.47N, 6.49% and 4.22%, respectively. After verification, the results are basically consistent, and the seeding and trenching performance meets the agronomic requirements. This study can provide a basis and technical reference for the design and development of the ditching technology and opener.

265-274

Authors: Yun LIU, Weiran LV, Lihong LI, Bing XU, Decong ZHENG, Qi LU

In order to fully explore the influence of different pressure methods on the growth characteristics of buckwheat, a pressure test device with adjustable press force, and easy to replace the press wheel was designed. Using the dry matter quality of buckwheat roots, stems, leaves at seedling stage, plant height, number of main stem nodes, number of main stem branches, grain number per plant, grain weight per plant, and yield as evaluation indexes, single factor test on press force was carried out, and three-factor and three-level orthogonal test was carried out too with press wheel outer diameter, press force and press wheel type as factors. The results showed that the index values of buckwheat showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the increase of press force. When the press force was 450 N, the growth and development of buckwheat performed best. The effects of press wheel outer diameter, press force, and press wheel type on growth characteristics of buckwheat was different. The effects of press force and press wheel type on the indexes were greater than that of press wheel outer diameter. The optimal pressure methods of buckwheat sowing are as follows: the press wheel outer diameter is 300 mm, the press force is 450 N, and the press wheel type is conical combined wheel. The results of this study could provide reference for the improvement of high-yield mechanized sowing technology of buckwheat and the design of rational pressure device.

287-298

Authors: Tianhua LI, Siqi ZHANG, Chaofan ZHANG, Guanshan ZHANG, Min WEI, Hongen GUO, Guoying SHI

This paper proposes a fertilizer mixing device that combines pressure relief return and mechanical agitation to address the issues in the current water-fertilizer integration equipment related to limited fertilizer mixing methods and inconvenient irrigation pressure regulation. The device employs different mixing modes for various fertilizer forms and uses pressure relief return to adjust irrigation pressure, thereby enhancing the efficiency of water-fertilizer mixing and optimizing energy consumption. The experimental results indicate that the reflux mode is suitable for liquid-type fertilizers which are fast dissolving and easy to diffuse, and its EC value is stable at about 6.60 mS/cm, which is close to the calibrated value of 6.80 mS/cm. The stirring paddle mode compensates for the reflux mode's weak mixing effect, making it suitable for solid powder-type fertilizers' mixing operation. The EC value remains stable at approximately 8.60 mS/cm when calibrated at 8.70 mS/cm. The “stirring paddle + two-way reflux” mode demonstrates the most robust mixing effect and is suitable for mixing solid granular fertilizers. When calibrated at 8.20 mS/cm, it stabilizes at approximately the calibration value after 105 s. This research provides technical support and a theoretical basis to accomplish efficient, energy-saving, and rational application of water-fertilizer integration across diverse fertilizer forms.

309-319

Authors: Huang TIANYI, Florentina BADEA, Xiao MAOHUA, Zhao SHANHU, Sorin-Ionut BADEA, Cristian-Radu BADEA

In order to solve the real-time obstacle avoidance problem in electric tractor operation, an improved dynamic window approach (DWA) based on optimal energy consumption is proposed for electric tractor obstacle avoidance. Firstly, energy consumption model of tractor is established based on the transmission system of electric tractor, then energy consumption evaluation sub-function is introduced to improve the evaluation function of original DWA algorithm, and finally, the trajectory is evaluated and the optimal solution of the trajectory is determined by using new evaluation function. Based on the kinematics model of YL254ET electric tractor in Yancheng Yueda, a model predictive controller is designed. The obstacle avoidance planning and tracking control of electric tractor are simulated jointly on Simulink and CarSim simulation platform. Finally, the obstacle avoidance planning test is carried out. The simulation and experimental results show that after the algorithm improvement, the energy consumption of electric tractors is reduced, the generated path is smoother, and the lateral error is smaller.

328-336

Authors: Bing XU, Qingliang CUI, Decong ZHENG

Aiming at the poor efficiency in crushing a handful of caking organic fertilizers spraying from the traditional disc spreader, an improved disc spreader equipped with spike-tooth crushing unit was designed with the introduction of its structural composition and working principle. Also simulation experiments were carried out based on the discrete element method according to the solutions made before and after the structural improvement. Firstly, a granular organic fertilizer model was established based on the EDEM and a caking organic fertilizer bonding model was built based on the HMB (Hertz-Mindlin with bonding) contact model. Then two organic fertilizer spreading models corresponding to the solutions were respectively established, based on which simulation experiments were repeated three times on the spreading process. The analysis on the particle velocity vector diagram revealed the interaction relationship between organic fertilizers with the toothed shaft, external wall and disk, verifying the crushing mechanism of crushing unit. By calculating the total number of the bonds generated and broken in the spreading process in both of the spreading models, the average broken rate of bonds in the spreading process was separately 58.87% and 98.05% based on each solution, revealing that the improved solution outperformed the traditional solution in terms of the efficiency in crushing the caking organic fertilizers. This research will be a reference in designing the critical components or improving the overall performance of disc spreader.

350-358

Authors: Volodymyr BULGAKOV, Semjons IVANOVS, Volodymyr KUVACHОV, Lucretia POPA, Igor SIVAK, Oleksandra TROKHANIAK, Yevhen IHNATIEV

An important operational indicator of agricultural machine-tractor units is the smoothness of movement, which significantly affects the traction and dynamic performance of their work, productivity, agronomic qualities of the operation, traffic safety, durability and efficiency. As a rule, it is evaluated by the influence of oscillations (translational vertical, transverse, angular longitudinal, etc.), on these indicators, as well as on the physical condition and health of operators who control these units in real production conditions. This article presents an improved method and results of experimental assessment of the smoothness of the movement of the modular agricultural unit, which moves in the footsteps of a constant technological track. Studies of the smoothness of the modular unit showed that the graphs of normalized correlation functions of vertical oscillations of the modular agricultural tool developed by us in its motion in the wake of a constant techno-logical track is characterized by a function containing along with random components harmonic, which are expressed by attenuating periodic oscillations. The range of frequencies of oscillations of the frame of the agricultural tool is concentrated in the range from 0 tо 20 s−1, which is consistent with the frequency range 0…0.3 s−1 in which the variances of oscillations of inequalities of a profile of traces of a technological track are concentrated. Studies have confirmed the effectiveness of the method of estimating the intensity of vertical oscillations of the agricultural unit measuring and recording system based on a tablet computer with Android operating system with built-in accelerometer sensors and Accelerometer Meter application. The developed technique of mathematical modelling and experimental determination of vertical oscillations of the machine-tractor unit can be used in the study of the dynamics of other agricultural machines and units.

369-378

Authors: Changqing LIU, Jinheng GU, Xin DU, Chengwen LIU, Yuefeng DU, Enrong MAO

The accuracy of tractor plowing is an important link to ensure the quality of agricultural crops. The integrated control of draft-position in plowing is an effective plowing precision control technology which can be used to improve the tractor's plowing efficiency. The hydraulic system of the tractor hitch has the characteristics of large load and complex working environment. A differential and integral sliding mode adaptive controller (DI-SMAC) is designed for the tractor hitch hydraulic system with strong nonlinearity, uncertainty and time-varying parameters. Compared with the traditional PID controller, integral sliding mode adaptive controller(I-SMAC) and differential and integral sliding mode adaptive controller(DI-SMAC) in the electro-hydraulic hitch control system, the numerical simulation verifies the advantages of the differential and integral sliding mode adaptive controller. The real test platform of the agricultural tractor is built. The test results show that the DI-SMAC can realize the integrated control function of draft-position. In the position control mode, there is no static error, and the anti-interference ability is strong; Under the draft control mode, compared with the traditional PID controller, the range of traction error of differential and integral sliding mode controller is reduced by 32.9%, and the standard deviation is reduced by 38.6%; When the weight coefficient is changed, the traction force and tillage depth fluctuation are different with different weight coefficients. It shows that the DI-SMAC is stable and effective, and the developed method is expected to provide technical support for the fine plowing operation of tractors.

391-400

Authors: Xin DU, Changqing LIU, Xuhui LI, Wei ZHU, Qixin SUN, Shufa CHEN

To ensure accurate and consistent fertilizer application, the key component of the fertilizer feeding device, the grooved wheel, was designed and theoretically analyzed, and the number of grooves of the fertilizer wheel was determined to be 9. The effects of grooves inclination angle, grooves length and operating speed on the fertilizer feeding performance were analyzed by single-factor tests, and the appropriate range of factors was determined. The effect of the interaction between groove length and operating speed on the amount of fertilizer discharged from the groove was investigated by a full factorial test, and a quadratic regression was fitted to the test results to establish the regression equations of groove length and operating speed on the average fertilizer application per groove and the coefficient of variation of the average fertilizer application per groove, which can be used to predict the average fertilizer application per groove and the coefficient of variation of the average fertilizer application per groove to solve for groove length and operating speed.

415-422

Authors: Dimitar GEORGIEV, Galina DINEVA, Dimitar KARASTOYANOV, Kancho PEYCHEV, Vania DIMOVA

The hourly productivity of the milking parlour is significantly influenced by the organization of the technological process. Milkers perform a series of sequential operations (entry on the platforms, washing, drying, placing the milking units, removing them, disinfecting the teats, exiting the platforms of the milking parlour) the duration of which is a large part of the total milking time. The duration of the latent period from the release of oxytocin to its contact with the myoepithelial cells in the glandular part of the udder is from 30 s to 90 s (average 60 s). In this line of thought, the following questions arise: "in what time interval should the preparatory operations for milking be performed and what is their permissible duration". The aim of the present study is to develop methodologies (models) for simulating the work of milkers in "Parallel" type parlours. It was found that under the initially set working conditions of only two milkers in the milking parlour, all developed models are applicable for capacities up to 2x8. Models II, III and IV are unacceptable for capacities above 2x8, as the total duration of preparation of milking cows exceeds the time frame by between 30-80%. This finding proves that for a capacity over 2x8 it is necessary to perform technological operations with a larger number of milkers.

431-440

Authors: Shibang MA, Ailing GUO

Soluble solid content (SSC) is a major quality index of kiwifruits. Visible near-infrared (Vis/NIR) hyperspectral imaging with the genetic algorithm (GA) was adopted in this study to realize the non-destructive prediction of kiwifruit SSC. A laboratory Vis/NIR hyperspectral imaging system was established to collect the hyperspectral imaging of 120 kiwifruit samples at a range of 400–1100 nm. The average reflectance spectral data of the region of interest of the kiwifruit hyperspectral imaging were obtained after different preprocessing method, namely, Savitzky–Golay smoothing (SG), multiplicative scatter correction (MSC), and their combination method. The prediction models of partial least squares regression, multiple linear regression, and least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) were built for determining kiwifruit SSC by using the average reflectance spectral data and effective feature wavelength variables selected by GA, respectively. The results show that SG+MSC is the best preprocessing method. The precisions of the prediction models built using the effective feature wavelength variables selected by GA are higher than that established using full average reflectance spectral data. The GA-LS-SVM prediction model has a best performance with correlation coefficient for prediction (R=0.932) and standard error of prediction (SEP=0.536° Bx) for predicting kiwifruit SSC. The prediction accuracy has been improved by 5.6% compared with that of the prediction models established by using the full-band reflectance spectral data. This study provides an effective method for non-destructive detection of kiwifruit SSC.

455-467

Authors: Zhen WANG, Keqing QIAN, Xiaoli ZHU, Xinyu HU, Xinran LI

With the rapid development of agricultural machinery intelligence and informatization, agricultural robots are becoming the protagonist, promoting standardized production in agriculture, improving efficiency, and reducing labor costs. However, how to quickly plan an efficient and safe path for agricultural transport robots is currently a hot topic in path planning research. In this study, the path optimization problem of agricultural robots handling agricultural products (such as Edible Fungi) in and out of warehouses, which served as the study object, was solved. First, the number of agricultural handling robots was initialized based on the scanning method, and the geometric center of sub-path nodes was set as the virtual node. Secondly, the optimal path of the virtual node was solved using the improved ant colony algorithm embedded with a genetic operator, and the optimal result of sub-paths was acquired. Thirdly, the optimal solution meeting constraint conditions was obtained with the launch cost, transportation cost, and time cost of agricultural robots as objective functions. Lastly, the effectiveness of the optimization model and the improved ant colony algorithm was verified through the instance analysis. This study is of certain significance to the ex-warehousing path optimization of agricultural robots under the sustainable development concept of agricultural automation.

477-486

Authors: Muhammad Nashir EFFENDY, Siti NURHASANAH, Asri WIDYASANTI

Desiccated Coconut (DC) is a product rich in fat, protein, carbohydrates and fiber. It is widely used as an additive for the snack industry. As a potential food additive product, every process needs to be considered to produce a good quality DC. The effort to maintain the quality of DC is to optimize the main process of making DC, namely the drying process. In several studies, the drying condition of DC was carried out differently, that is why an optimization process on DC drying is needed. This study aims to determine the temperature and drying time combination that produces DC with the optimum moisture content, fat content, and yield. The drying process used a food dehydrator with a temperature combination of 50°C to 70°C and a time of 2 to 4 hours. The research method used was a laboratory experimental method with Response Surface Methodology (RSM) optimization using Central Composite Design (CCD). It was presented that the optimum drying conditions given by RSM were obtained by drying at 70°C for 2 hours. The results obtained from the validation of a water content of 1.279% wet basis (wb), a fat content of 64.855% wb, and a yield of 42.363%, were following CODEX STAN 177-1991. Based on this study, it can be concluded that the combination of temperature and drying time affects moisture content, fat content, and DC yield.

497-506

Authors: Man CHEN, Gong CHENG, Jinshan XU, Guangyue ZHANG, Chengqian JIN

In this study, an online detection system of soybean crushed rate and impurity rate based on DeepLabV3+model was constructed. Three feature extraction networks, namely the MobileNetV2, Xception-65, and ResNet-50 models, were adopted to obtain the best DeepLabV3+model through test analysis. Two well-established semantic segmentation networks, the improved U-Net and PSPNet, are used for mechanically harvested soybean image recognition and segmentation, and their performances are compared with the DeepLabV3+ model’s performance. The results show that, of all the models, the improved U-Net has the best segmentation performance, achieving a mean intersection over union (FMIOU) value of 0.8326. The segmentation performance of the DeepLabV3+ model using the MobileNetV2 is similar to that of the U-Net, achieving FMIOU of 0.8180. The DeepLabV3+ model using the MobileNetV2 has a fast segmentation speed of 168.6 ms per image. Taking manual detection results as a benchmark, the maximum absolute and relative errors of the impurity rate of the detection system based on the DeepLabV3+ model with the MobileNetV2 of mechanized soybean harvesting operation are 0.06% and 8.11%, respectively. The maximum absolute and relative errors of the crushed rate of the same system are 0.34% and 9.53%, respectively.

517-526

Authors: Tiangang HOU, Zhenyu WANG, Mingce ZHAO, Cuihong LIU, Mingjin XIN, Liyan WU, Benhua ZHANG

In this study, the effects of different electric field parameters on the germination characteristics of aged rice seeds were determined via low-frequency high-voltage pulsed electric field (LH-PEF) treatment. The Design-Expert software was used to design a rotating combination test, and response surface analysis was used to optimize five germination characteristics of rice seeds. The optimal treatment voltage was 13 kV and the optimal treatment time was 32.72 min. The results show that, under the optimal treatment conditions (P<0.01), the germination potential (GE), germination rate (GP), germination index (GI), vitality index (VI) and high vitality ratio (HVR) of the aged rice seeds increased by 23.7%, 17.7%, 43.2%, 59.7%, and 250%, respectively, compared to the control. The pulsed electric field’s biological effect on the aged rice seeds was the most significant when the optimal treatment parameters were used. The results of this study provide a reliable reference for the parameter optimization of high-voltage electric field treatment of crop seeds.

539-548

Authors: Fazheng WANG, Yaoming LI, Yanbin LIU, Kuizhou JI, Zeng LI, Xiangqian XU, Lei XU

In view of the fact that the threshing gap of combine harvester can only be controlled by adjusting gravure screen and it is time-consuming and laboring, a kind of variable-diameter threshing drum with movable radial plates is developed by changing the diameter of threshing drum to adjust the threshing gap concentrically. All parts of the threshing drum were designed and checked by mechanical design principle, and the statics and modal analysis of the whole structure were carried out by ANSYS Workbench. The results show that the maximum deformation of the variable-diameter threshing drum with movable radial plates is 0.29 mm under boundary conditions. The maximum allowable deformation of the threshing drum in use is 3 mm, which meets the requirements of use. The equivalent stress of the threshing drum with variable diameter is up to 100 MPa, which is less than the yield strength of the material, and will not cause structural damage. According to the modal analysis, the natural frequency of the threshing drum does not cause resonance phenomenon. The field test of wheat was carried out after the processing of the variable-diameter threshing drum with movable radial plates was installed, and the working performance was compared with that of the ordinary drum. The results showed that the threshing performance was the best when the forward speed was 1 m/s, the grain entrainment loss rate was 0.53%, and the grain un-threshed rate was 0.065%. The grain breakage rate is 0.54%, and the performance is more than 50% higher than that of ordinary rollers. It lays a foundation for the adaptive adjustment of threshing gap in combine harvester.

557-559

Authors: Xianmin LIANG, Xiangcai ZHANG, Xingcheng AN, Meng LIU, Xianliang WANG, Zhongcai WEI, Xiupei CHENG, Hui LI

An active-action seeding depth automatic control system was designed , with the purpose of effectively ensure the consistency and stability of the seeding depth when the seeder is operated in the field. Strain-gauge pressure sensor was used in the system, which can detect the force on the tip of the furrow opener in the soil in real time, proceed to the next step judge the change of the seeding depth in the soil according to the change of the pressure signal. In order to achieve consistency and stability of seeding depth, the control signal formation circuit will send a control signal when the pressure on the tip of furrow opener exceeds the appropriate pressure range, and the motor will be controlled to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise to drive the rack and pinion movement to realize the vertical lift of the furrow opener, so that the force on the tip of furrow opener in the soil remains within the appropriate range. The test results indicate that the seeding depth adjustment device based on the tip of furrow opener force measurement has stable and reliable control performance for controlling the seeding depth with an average seeding depth qualification rate of 94.56% and an average seeding depth variation coefficient of only 9.29%, which greatly ensures the consistency and stability of the seeding depth under the condition that the seeding depth is 30-70mm and the working speed is 3-7km/h.

583-592

Authors: Valerian CEREMPEI, Eduard BANARI, Gheorghe POȘTARU, Lucreţia POPA

In the given article, the results of the tribological research of the chrome-gray cast iron coupling are presented, the friction conditions between the cylinder liner and the compression segment being lubricated in various environments are modeled: diesel (control), pure biodiesel B100 and biodiesel-diesel B20 mixture. It was established that the average values of the coefficient of friction in the chrome-gray cast iron coupling, in the case of using biofuels B20, B100 as the lubricating material, are higher in relation to diesel fuel: by 15.6% for B20 and, respectively, by 23.3% for B100. The values of the total wear of the tribological coupling decreased, in relation to diesel, by 36.8% in the case of lubrication with B20 and by 39.5% - with B100.

21-34

Authors: Zheng WANG, Qingfu GONG, Fade LI, Ang GAO, Longlong REN, Yuepeng SONG

In order to improve the level of forage harvester automation and reduce damage, blockage and efficiency, based on the principle of minimum energy, fuzzy prediction theory and external characteristics of power, the mathematical model of the whole machine and each operating unit is established, and a set of forage harvester operating load adaptive feedback control system is designed; in order to make the power more scientifically and effectively distributed in real-time, the system adopts the simplified algorithm of operating unit efficacy threshold load splitting optimization control, with constant power and high efficiency. In order to make the power distribution more scientific and effective in real-time, the system adopts the simplified algorithm of operating unit efficacy threshold load splitting control to increase the load threshold of cutting and other operating units under constant power conditions, so that the operating efficiency of the whole machine can be improved. In the simulation test, the efficacy chopping load threshold ratio is about 1.08:1.01:1 for the three operation control methods of optimized control, fuzzy predictive control and PID control of the forage harvester, with 40% of the original feeding amount perturbation applied respectively. production efficiency was significantly improved.

46-54

Authors: Eni SUMARNI, Irmanida BATUBARA, Herry SUHARDIYANTO, Slamet WIDODO, Mohamad SOLAHUDIN, Eti ROHAETI, Folkes LAUMAL

Purwoceng (Pimpinella pruatjan Molkenb) is a medicinal plant native to Indonesia known as Indonesian Viagra from Java. The decline and scarcity of Purwoceng is an important obstacle in meeting the demands of harvesting from the original habitat without conservation and the extreme climatic conditions in the Dieng plateau. Therefore, it is necessary to apply controlled cultivation technology, namely hydroponic technology with drip irrigation in the greenhouse, to increase the yield and quality of Purwoceng. This study aimed to obtain the effect of hydroponic methods and hydroponic nutrition (EC) on the yield and quality of Purwoceng. The study was conducted from December 2020 to March 2021 at a greenhouse of ± 1500 m above sea level. The experiment used a randomized block design with three replications. Each replication consisted of 15 plants. Hydroponic type, which was recirculating drip, non-circulating drip, and nutrient concentration which were 1000 ppm, 1500 ppm, and 2000 ppm. The harvest weight (aerial part and root), moisture, ash, crude fat, crude fiber, water extractive, and ethanol extractive content, and the contaminant (microbial and heavy metal) content, were analyzed. In conclusion, to produce high-quality Purwoceng, a hydroponic system could be used using recirculating drip and 1000 ppm nutrient dose.

65-73

Authors: Guoliang WANG, Huiling DU, Wenjun WANG, Jiangui ZHAO, Hong LI, Erhu GUO, Zhiwei LI

Soil nutrient content is an important index to evaluate the growing environment of crops. Rapid access to soil nutrient information is an important requirement for the development of modern precision agriculture, while the detection of soil organic matter content is a necessary condition for understanding the basic soil fertility and implementing crop precision cultivation. In this paper, the soil of rural fields in the southeast of Shanxi Province before sowing was taken as the research object. 111 soil samples to be tested were collected. After the process of drying, impurity removal and grinding, the hyperspectral data of the Region of interest (ROI) of the samples were collected, and then the chemical determination of soil organic matter content was conducted. The original spectral data matrix was pretreated by numerical transformation operations, such as arithmetic mean, average deviation, 1st derivation, natural logarithm and mixed multiplication, and a Partial least square regression (PLSR) quantitative analysis model was established. In these models, the obtained prediction set RP value under the pretreatment of F(A)*ln(AD) was the highest, reaching 0.8859. For spectral data preprocessed by F(A)* Ln (AD), the Competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) algorithm and Random frog (RF) algorithm were used to select key variables. The PLSR model was established by using F(A)* Ln (AD)&CARS data processing method, and the RP value was increased to 0.9545. The prediction results can accurately reflect the real content of soil organic matter. The results of this study can provide theoretical support for the application of hyperspectral imaging technology in the determination of soil organic matter content, and provide a reference for the rapid detection of other soil components.

88-98

Authors: Yanwen LI, Juxia LI, Zhenyu LIU, Zhifang BI, Hui ZHANG, Lei DUAN

In order to solve the problem that the complex pig house environment leads to the difficulty and low accuracy of abnormal detection of group pigs. The video of 9 adult fattening pigs were collected, and the video key frames were obtained by the frame differential method as the training set, and the YOLOX model for abnormal detection of group pigs was constructed. The results show that the average accuracy of YOLOX model on the test set is 98.0%. The research results can provide a reference for the detection of pig anomalies in the breeding environment of pig farms.

109-120

Authors: Jin CHEN, Hua ZHOU, Hailong CHE, Yuanyi LIU, Pei LI

In the seedling extraction mechanism of the ejection type, because the ejector rod is in direct contact with the seedling substrate, the fragmentation rate of the seedling is high, the success rate is low, and the seedling effect is poor. In order to solve this problem, combined with the interaction between the ejector rod and the bowl seedling, this paper analyzes the working principle of the ejector rod conveyor belt seedling harvesting mechanism, and optimizes the design of the ejector rod conveyor belt seedling harvesting mechanism. By using the method of EDEM simulation analysis and orthogonal experiment, taking the breaking rate and success rate of bowl seedling as the test response index, the effects of ejector rod end form, ejector rod diameter and seedling extraction speed were studied, and the results were analyzed by range analysis and variance analysis to analyze the influence law of the interaction of various factors on bowl seedling extraction. The simulation results show that the crushing rate of bowl seedlings increases with the increase of seedling speed and the decrease of ejector diameter. Among the three different types of ejectors, the effect of round head ejector is the best. The best parameter combination of the seedling mechanism is the diameter of the ejector rod 10mm, the seedling speed 2m/s, and the ejector rod in the form of round head ejector rod. The verification experiment shows that the seedling extraction effect of the optimized seedling extraction mechanism is better than that of the original seedling extraction mechanism. The results show that when the best combination of working parameters is used to collect seedlings, the qualified rate of seedlings is not less than 90%, the fragmentation rate is not higher than 20%, and the seedling performance is relatively stable. The optimized seedling extraction mechanism can be used in the automatic dryland bowl seedling transplanter to meet the operational requirements of the automatic transplanter.

131-144

Authors: Yujie DENG, Guohai ZHANG, Aoqi ZHANG, Jitan LIAN, Jia YAO, Xin WANG, Xiaohui YANG

To address the problems of high breakage rates, high entrainment losses and many unthreshed kernels when harvesting high moisture content maize seeds, a high moisture content maize seed threshing test was designed based on a multifunctional seed harvester stand designed by this group.In order to determine the optimum operating parameters of the threshing unit, single-factor experiments and orthogonal tests were carried out using the threshing drum speed, concave plate clearance and feed rate as test factors and the crushing rate, unthreshing rate, entrained loss rate and trash content rate as test evaluation indicators.The optimum combination of test factors obtained for the harvesting of maize at 32% to 34% moisture content was a drum speed of 346.55r/min, a concave plate clearance of 44.39mm and a feed rate of 9.739Kg/s.After repeated experiments on the bench, the test results with optimum parameters were 6.311% crushing rate, 0.187% unthreshing rate, 0.912% entrained loss rate and 4.251% impurity rate, at which point the crushing rate was the lowest and the other three met national standards.

159-169

Authors: YunHe ZHANG, JinPeng CHENG, XueJun ZHANG, ZengLu SHI, MeiJing WANG, HaiFeng WU, Hao FU

In order to further improve the seeding performance of the maize seed-metering device, a pressure-holding precision seed-metering device for maize was designed. The seed-metering device is made up of several seed rowing modules, which effectively solves the problems of inconvenient disassembly and complex maintenance of the current maize seed-metering device. The working principle of the device was introduced, and the mechanical and kinematic analysis of the maize seeds during the seeding operation was carried out. The orthogonal test was carried out with the installation diameter of seed-metering device's guide plate, torsion spring's wire diameter and seed-metering device's rotational speed as the test factors, the single-seeding rate, missed-seeding rate and multiple-seeding rate as the indexes, and the relationship between different test factors on the performance of seed-metering device was obtained. By optimizing the model, the best performance of the seed-metering device was obtained when the installation diameter of the guide plate was 92.32 mm, the wire diameter of the torsion spring was 1.59 mm, and the rotational speed of the seed-metering device was 0.41 r/s. At this time, the single-seed rate was 93.08%, the missed-seeding rate was 3%, and the multiple-seeding rate was 3.9%, which met the requirements of the industry standard.

177-184

Authors: Delin WU, Enlong ZHAO, Dong FANG, Yilin LIU, Shunli WANG, Cheng WU, Feng GUO

In order to use the resonance principle for vibratory picking of Camellia oleifera fruit, the frequency sweep tests were carried out on the fruiting branches of Camellia oleifera trees. The results showed that the acceleration response of fruit-bearing branches had good consistency. The use of fruit removal rate alone to evaluate the picking effect is not reliable, and the introduction of energy utilization to evaluate the vibration picking effect is significant. The best results were a vibration frequency of 8 Hz and an excitation time of 10 s. The fruit removal rate was 88.12% and the energy utilization rate was 36.72%. Compared with the traditional fruit shedding rate, the application of energy utilization rate to evaluate the picking effect can improve the reliability of the results and reduce the energy loss.

195-204

Authors: Olena NALOBINA, Nazar VASYLCHUK, Oleh BUNDZA, Mykola HOLOTIUK, Vitaliy PUTS, Viktor MARTYNIUK

The relevance of the study is due to the need to reduce the energy intensity of the process of cutting sunflower stalks by choosing a rational profile of knives. The research is based on a comparative analysis of experimental values of cutting forces for the proposed and manufactured design of the knife system and known knife systems. The studies have shown that the implementation of the retaining and main knives of the header in the form of a curved spiral of Archimedes allowed to reduce the cutting force. It was also found that the cutting force for the proposed design of the knife system, unlike other studied, practically does not change with the removal of the stem from the axis of rotation of the knives, which does not require an increase in energy costs for the cutting process.

215-224

Authors: Weiwei CHENG, Xin YOU, Tao TIAN, Jiaxuan LU, Junlin HE, Zhouhua LIU, Fei HAN

A sunken solar greenhouse is the original type of greenhouse in China, its soil wall thermal storage performance is better and low cost. Higher benefits of stereoscopic planting in sunken solar greenhouses, while repeated use of the substrate can produce pathogens, so high-temperature smothering is used for sterilization in the summer months of June to August. To investigate the mechanism of indoor temperature and humidity variation and fungicidal effect in a sunken solar greenhouse, a single cross-sectional test of temperature and humidity in sunken solar greenhouse during the smothering period was conducted using wireless sensors. The results showed that: The maximum value of indoor temperature at noon was 69.5°C the temperature value of all measurement points was greater than 50°C for 3h, when removing the measurement points at the upper surface of the ground, the relative humidity value of other measurement points was less than 60% for 5h. During the daytime period, when the indoor temperature is greater than 28°C in the interval 7:00-12:00, the initial relative humidity value of each measurement point is located at 70%-85%; when the weighted temperature of each measurement point starts to rise at a rate of 1.1°C/10min, the weighted humidity of each measurement point declining is 1.3%/10min; the determination of the rate of change of indoor temperature and humidity during the daytime and the starting value can provide a basis for indoor plants to take measures to sterilize at high temperature.

237-244

Authors: Dejiang LIU, Jianling HU, Yan GONG, Xiao CHEN, Guo WANG, Xiao ZHANG, Yingchun ZHU

Considering the planting mode and agronomics requirements of the existing facilities, the high-power rototilling ridge hoisting and lamination machine is difficult to operate in the greenhouse of the facility, and the small hanging rotary ridge raiser has technical problems such as insufficient horsepower. This paper designs the hanging rotary tillage ridging and film - covering machine. The machine realizes a single operation process to complete rotary tillage, ridging, drip irrigation, film laying and film edge covering soil suppression and other mechanized compound operations. The innovatively designed adjustable ridging device of this machine can steplessly adjust the size of the ridge. The ridge height after operation of the machine is 25-35 cm, the ridge width is 70-80 cm, the ridge shape is arc-shaped, the size is adjustable, and the operation efficiency is improved being 0.17-0.23 hectares/hour, the machine driving speed is set at low speed 1 gear. The machine has high operating efficiency, the arc-shaped ridge body is uniform and compact. the ridge body has a large lighting surface, the film is tightly laid, and it is close to the ridge surface without wrinkling. By test data analysis, the tillage depth stability is 93%, the ridge height qualified rate is 100%, the ridge width qualified rate is 85%, the ridge spacing qualified rate is 95%, the film edge covered soil thickness is 40 mm, the working efficiency is 0.802 hm2/h, the fuel consumption per hectare is 9.02 kg·h/m2, and the three shifts work without fault. To sum up, it meets the agronomic requirements of ridging and film planting.

260-268

Authors: Wenting JIN, Yuqi ZHUANSUN, Tengfei ZHUANG, Qi LU, Wenlong LI, Liuxuan MA

Mechanical weeding in paddy fields is a green and environmentally friendly way to control weeds, which has the advantages of reducing the amount of pesticides and improving the physical structure of the soil. This paper briefly describes the composition and relevant parameters of the mechanical weeding environment in rice fields. Using Creo 5.0, HyperMesh 2017, and LS-PrePost and LS-DYNA software to jointly simulate the interaction process between inverted V-shaped inter-plant weeding component and the soil in the paddy field, the single-point ALE multi-material unit algorithm is used to couple the soil and water with multiple substances, and realize the material movement between the soil and the water layer. Using the penalty function method, a fluid-solid coupling finite element modelled on the interaction between inter-plant weeding components and soil-water was established. The dynamic behavior of the interactions shows that the coupling stress increases and then decreases periodically, and the teeth of the spring cross the soil with a "bending moon (fish scale)" scratch, which can effectively avoid rice seedlings and reduce the injury rate.

285-294

Authors: Zhenfeng XU, Jiajian YANG, Huan ZHOU, Yunfang HOU

This paper describes the design and implementation of a wireless sensor based on NB-IoT (Narrow Band Internet of Things) for monitoring agricultural environmental information. The sensor is capable of real-time monitoring of four environmental parameters, including ambient temperature, relative humidity, illuminance, and CO2 concentration. In the hardware design, sensor elements are selected based on the measurement ranges and accuracies specified in agricultural environmental monitoring industry standards. The hardware circuit is designed using the BC35-G type NB-IoT module and STM32 MCU (Microcontroller Unit). In the software design, data from the environmental parameters are collected and processed by the STM32 MCU and sent to the OneNET cloud platform through the NB-IoT module. The OneNET cloud platform enables users to view the relevant environmental data collected by the sensors using mobile phones and other mobile terminals. To test the effectiveness of the developed sensors, they were tested in a glass greenhouse at Fuyang Ziqing Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. in Anhui Province. The results demonstrate that the sensors can accurately collect the data of relevant environmental parameters and can provide stable wireless transmission of data remotely, making them suitable for practical engineering applications. In summary, this wireless remote monitoring sensor based on NB-IoT represents a significant advancement in the field of agricultural automation. The sensor's ability to accurately monitor and wirelessly transmit data in real-time provides farmers with valuable information to optimize crop growth and maximize yields.

305-314

Authors: Igor TSIZ, Serhiі KHOMYCH, Vasyl SATSIUK, Victor TARASIUK

For many years, global researches that focus on improving soil fertility have been conducted. Nowadays, innovative inculcations of environmentally (ecologically) friendly organic agriculture are becoming quite popular. One of the most effective indicators is the use of alternative types of fertilizers. As part of large-scale experiments, researchers propose to use fertilizers made from organic sapropel concentrated in freshwater lakes. Analysis of such studies shows that the impact of sapropel on soil fertility is significant and complex. The main problem they faced is the extraction of these deposits from underwater deposits (fields). Ukrainian scientists have proven the effectiveness of sapropel extraction by means of a pneumatic intake device. To substantiate the rational parameters of this device and visualize the processes, experimental studies of the work of the pneumatic working body were carried out. Namely, experimental studies of the determination of the trajectories of air bubbles in liquids of different viscosity were carried out. According to received trajectories, the boundaries of airflow and its shape are determined. Limpid liquids of different viscosities were used specially in order to see and fix the flow parameters, because it is impossible to observe such a phenomenon in sapropels placed in underwater deposits, due to their opacity and change of viscosity with depth of the bedding. Therefore, the experiment was considered as close as possible to the real one, and the environment of realization of the experiment was simulated. Water, industrial oil and concentrated detergent were selected as investigated liquids. Research data indicate that one can use a whirling airflow for better loosening of deposits of reduced humidity. Whirling occurs when there is a horizontal position of the outlet axis with a diameter in the range of 1-1.5 mm and air pressure of 300-400 kPa.

325-334

Authors: Zhi HE, Zixu LI, Xingting DING, Kai LI, Yinggang SHI, Yongjie CUI

A kiwifruit harvesting end effector was designed and developed to improve the efficiency of mechanized kiwifruit harvesting. Firstly, the automated kiwifruit picking process was determined according to the kiwifruit orchard working environment. Secondly, the end-effector was designed and analyzed based on the principle of kiwifruit picking. Finally, an orchard experiment was conducted with the clamping force, rotation angle and rotation speed of the end-effector as test factors, and the separation success rate, separation time and damage rate of kiwifruit fruit as test indicators. A regression model between the test factors and test indicators was established using a quadratic fitting equation to analyze the influence between the test factors and indicators. The experimental results showed that the optimal parameter was a clamping force of 3.05 N, a separation angle of 65.75°, and a separation speed of 60.03°/s. The results of the study provide theoretical basis and technical support for automated kiwifruit harvesting.

349-358

Authors: Aman SANTOSO, Lilik Eka RADIATI, Evi DAMAYANTI, Armaini ARMAINI, Amiroh NABILAH-MUJAHIDAH, Eli Hendrik SANJAYA, Muntholib MUNTHOLIB, Muhammad Roy ASRORI

Goat milk kefir has high nutritional value, especially in protein and calcium content and has a low lactose content. Vacuum drying is an alternative to remove the water content in kefir so that it can extend the shelf life because it inhibits bacterial growth. This study determines the effect of aging time and drying time using vacuum drying method on the characteristics and amino acid composition of goat milk kefir (kefir and powder kefir). Fermented goat milk (24 hours) use kefir grains without aging and with aging times of 1, 2, 3, 4 (week). The total titrated acid and fat content were significantly different in kefir, but it is not significantly different in powder kefir. The yield, moisture, ash, protein, fiber, and fat in both kefir and powder kefir did not show significant differences. The best treatment based on the exponential comparison method for both powder kefir and kefir was 3 weeks of aging time. Therefore, the amino acid components in powder kefir and kefir underwent changes. The highest total amino acids in kefir was kefir without aging. The highest amino acid of powder kefir was obtained after 2 weeks of aging time.

369-378

Authors: Gennadii GOLUB, Viacheslav CHUBA, Vasyl ACHKEVYCH, Victor KRUSHELNYTSKYI, Nataliya TSYVENKOVA

The article defines the influence of the traction resistance of the machine-tractor unit working tool on the weight distribution of the tractor along the running system axles. Depending on the type of field work, the resistance force of tools aggregated with a tractor has a different value, accordingly, the tractor has a different weight distribution along the axles and, thus, different ground pressure. An increase in pressure on the soil leads to additional costs for tillage, and in the future to a decrease in agricultural production efficiency. The article presents a mathematical model for determining the reactions of the soil, and, accordingly, the pressure of tractor engines on the ground, depending on the structural parameters of the tractor, its adequacy estimation, and an example of calculating the weight distribution along the tractor axles.

389-398

Authors: Oleksandr ZABOLOTNYI, Vitalii ZABOLOTNYI, Nicolay KOSHEVOY

The main task was to receive a robust transfer function for the capacitive grain moisture measurement system. It was estimated how the new transfer function compensates for the type uncertainty and how close it is to the nominal values of moisture content. Dispersions of adequacy and repeatability of the new transfer function, which describe possible variation in the measured moisture values and the correspondence of the new transfer function with the nominal linear transfer function of a moisture meter respectively, were calculated for five chosen substances. It was proved that the new transfer function has lower sensitivity to grain type and better adequacy to the ideal transfer function than the closest analog.

409-416

Authors: Bing XU, Decong ZHENG, Qingliang CUI, Hanqing YAO

In the buckwheat industry, buckwheat sizing effect has played a significant role in the subsequent hulling effect and food quality in its deep processing. In order to study the influence of inclination angle of linear vibrating screen on buckwheat sizing effect, EDEM was used for numerical simulation of sizing process with the inclination angle of the screen separately at 2°, 3°, 4°, and 5°. By observing particle distribution on the screen deck and calculating the different types of particles in various statistical areas, qualitative comparison and quantitative analysis on the conveying capability of the screen and the penetrating capability of particles at different inclination angles were made, and the results revealed that with the increase in the inclination angle of the screen, the conveying capability of the screen was enhanced, while particles became less capable of penetrating through the sieve. When the inclination angle was increased from 2° to 3°, the conveying capability of the screen was significantly improved, while the penetrating capability of particles on both screen decks was slightly reduced. By taking the penetrating capability of particles and the conveying capability of the screen into comprehensive consideration, it turned out that better sizing effect would be achieved at the inclination angle of 3o. Our research will provide a reference for optimizing the processing parameters during the vibrating separation of buckwheat.

427-436

Authors: Alexandru-Polifron CHIRIȚĂ, Cristian PAVEL

Both in the case of precision agriculture and in the case of some agricultural works, in which the technological process is dependent on the velocity of displacement of the platform carrying the agricultural equipment, it is necessary to precisely adjust or even continuously adjust the velocity of displacement. This article presents the capabilities of continuously regulating the travel velocity of an agricultural platform equipped with a hydrostatic transmission and a PID controller with feedback, feedforward, as well as nonlinear disturbance compensation capabilities; such a platform can be fitted with various agricultural equipment.

449-460

Authors: Yakun ZHANG, Zihua FENG, Yalin HUANG, Tingting LI, Xingyang YANG, Hangxing ZHANG, Libo WANG

Smart agriculture, which combines the Internet of Things (IoT) with agriculture, is the future of agricultural development. In China, manual irrigation is currently the dominant method for seedling irrigation management, but it is inefficient and can lead to water waste. To improve seedling quality and output, reduce labor costs, and conserve water resources, this paper presents a design for an IoT system that uses soil moisture detection and remote precision irrigation for seedlings. The system includes a STC12C5A60S2 microcontroller, an ESP8266-01S communication module, a PRISON PR-3000-ECTH-N01 soil temperature and humidity module, and a 12V water pump. The system is connected to the OneNET platform via the MQTT protocol of the Wi-Fi module and includes software modules for data processing, Wi-Fi communication, and relay control. The OneNET platform allows users to monitor and record real-time temperature and humidity data and switch between automatic and manual modes and seedling threshold types. The system was tested for 24 hours and collected 28,000 temperature and humidity data points every 3 seconds with a packet loss rate of less than 5%. The results show that the system is stable and reliable.

471-480

Authors: Jizhong WANG, Xianfa FANG, Fengzhu WANG, Yangchun LIU, Bo ZHAO

In order to reduce the harvest loss and optimize and improve the comprehensive performance of the combine harvester, the relationship between the feeding quantity, drum torque, drum speed, harvest loss, and other factors of the wheat combine harvester is studied, and the functional relationship between the loss, feeding quantity and speed is determined. According to the test data, the relationship model between the feeding quantity of the harvester and the drum torque is a quadratic function. For the land with uniform growth, the size of feeding quantity is mainly affected by the forward speed of the harvester. In this way, this paper indirectly achieves the purpose of controlling the feeding quantity by controlling the speed of the harvesting machinery. The control system designed in this paper uses the compensated fuzzy PID to control the walking speed of the vehicle through real-time detection of the drum torque, drum speed and loss of the harvester, so as to comprehensively control the working speed of the harvester and effectively control the harvest loss. The test results show that the control system can effectively reduce the harvest loss and improve the harvest efficiency compared with the manual harvest of the wheat.

492-500

Authors: Ronghua WANG, Yanbin ZHANG, Jianmin DU, Yuge BI

Identification and classification of vegetation are the basis for grassland degradation monitoring, classification and quantification studies. Here, four deep learning models were used to classify the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hyperspectral remote sensing images of desert grassland. VGG16 and ResNet18 achieved better image classification results for vegetation and bare soil, whereas three-dimensional (3D)-VGG16 and 3D-ResNet18, improved by 3D convolutional kernels, achieved better classification for vegetation, bare soil and small sample features in the images. The number of convolutional kernels, its size and batch size parameters of each model were optimised, and 3D-ResNet18-J had the best classification performance, with an overall classification accuracy of 97.74%. It achieved high precision and efficiency in classifying UAV hyperspectral remote sensing images of desert grassland.

511-519

Authors: Zedong ZHAO, Hongyong DU, Xiaohui YANG, Guohai ZHANG

To better analyze the distribution law of airflow in the wind sieve type cleaning device, this study took the cleaning device of Yafeng 4YZL-6S corn seed harvester as an example and conducted numerical simulation and comparative analysis of the airflow field inside the cleaning device under the sieve plate opening scales of 12, 16 and 20 mm using CFD software. The numerical simulation showed that the distribution of airflow velocity above the sieve surface was uniform at a sieve plate opening scale of 16 mm. Airflow velocity measurements were performed on the test prototype using an anemometer to verify the accuracy of the numerical simulation results. The simulation test results were supplemented by field trials, which showed that when the speed of the cleaning fan was 1200 r/min and the sieve plate opening scale was 16 mm, the impurity rate in the field harvest of the operating machinery was 1.03% and the loss rate was 1.91%. The operating effect met the standard of mechanized corn grain harvesting. This paper can provide a reference for the design and working mechanism research of corn seed harvester cleaning devices.

527-536

Authors: Shilei KANG, Jiaxuan LU, Huhu YANG, Yanxi GUO, Junlin HE

The mechanical parameters of Cerasus humilis are the basic data for subsequent studies on fruit deformation, damage, and movement characteristics during harvesting and transportation, but these parameters are rarely reported. Relevant mechanical parameters of whole fruit compression are calculated by comparing physical tests and virtual simulations. The orthogonal rotating combined experimental design was used to arrange the simulation tests, with the elastic modulus (E), yield limit (Ey), and tangent modulus (Et) as the influence factors and compression force as the result. Response surface optimization was employed to find the closest test point to the force–deformation curve of the physical test. The parameters of the pulp test point are as follows: E = 0.923 MPa, Ey = 0.0897 MPa, and Et = 0.478 MPa. Results show that the step on the force–deformation curve was not the beginning of the pulp yield, which was substantially earlier than the strain rate at the simulation step. The region of increased stress in the pulp first appeared at the junction with the core due to stress concentration. Combining virtual and physical tests to solve the mechanical parameters of fruits is more suitable than testing the standard pulp sample.

549-558

Authors: Ning HAN, Tonghui WU, Qian WU, Hongzhi DU, Zhiyong ZHANG, Yanqing ZHANG

Flaxseed oil is rich in α-linolenic acid and other nutrients, and the adulteration happens frequently because of its high price. To detect the adulteration of flaxseed oil quickly and accurately, a method was proposed based on weighted reconstructed two-dimensional correlation near-infrared(NIR) spectra. The near-infrared spectra of 79 adulterated flaxseed oil samples (adulterated by rapeseed oil with the doping volume ratio 1%-40%) were measured, and the traditional two-dimensional correlation synchronous spectra were calculated. The two-dimensional correlation synchronous spectra of all samples were decomposed into multiple components of different scales by the bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition algorithm (BEMD). According to the root mean square error(RMSE) values of the adulteration detection sub-models established by each component, the weights of the corresponding components were calculated, and then the two-dimensional correlation spectra of all samples were reconstructed by accumulating the weighted components. A quantitative analysis model of flaxseed oil adulteration was established based on the weighted reconstructed two-dimensional correlation spectra combined with the N-way partial least square(N-PLS)algorithm. Compared with the traditional two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy, the model built by the weighted reconstructed two-dimensional correlation spectra had better performance with the calibration determination coefficient increased by 6.05%, and the prediction determination coefficient increased by 7.5%. The proposed method could effectively enhance the spectral feature information, reduce the spectral noise interference, and hence provide a new idea for the detection of edible oil adulteration.

569-578

Authors: Yan CHEN, Hua GUO, Shi FU, Rui ZHANG, Ming ZHANG

The objective of ecological restoration and rehabilitation of grasslands is to recreate the original appearance of damaged or degraded vegetation. From previous research, the pneumatic spraying technology is now more commonly used in the world for vegetation restoration. Pneumatic spraying is relatively inexpensive and causes little damage to the original vegetation, making it one of the most effective techniques for restoring natural grassland vegetation under natural climatic conditions. In this paper, the effect of the spraying machine pipe working airflow on the quality of spraying was studied through simulation analysis and experimental tests. The seeding area of the spraying machine corresponding to different values of the pipe inlet airflow speed was determined. The conclusions show that: 1) the spray pipe inlet airflow velocity has a great influence on the uniformity of spraying. When the airflow velocity is higher than 55 m/s, the spraying is not uniform, while the airflow velocity is lower than 45 m/s, the spraying amplitude is smaller, the operational efficiency is low, which is not conducive to the restoration of degraded grasslands; 2) considering the uniformity of spraying and operational efficiency, the airflow velocity at the inlet of the spray pipe should be between 45 and 55 m/s when the spraying machine is in operation. The seed drop area is changed, by adjusting the airflow velocity of the spray pipe inlet, and the reseeding and leakage area of the seed drop area is reduced, so that the spraying performance of the spraying machine is optimized.

589-596

Authors: Bolong WANG, Zhiyong LIN, Mingjie GAO, Guohai ZHANG, Duanyang GENG, Zhou SHI

It is urgent to study the damage mechanism of corn kernels and find ways of reducing the rate of kernel breakage in mechanical threshing. This paper, by studying the mechanical curves and deformation characteristics of corn kernels with different moisture contents, points out the brittle mechanical characteristics of corn kernel damage fracture with low moisture content, and clarifies the the variation law of mechanical properties of kernels with moisture contents. The experimental data of fatigue load - fatigue life curves of corn kernels with different moisture contents were described by the power function equation. At the same time, the fatigue life and damage characteristics of kernel with different moisture content were analyzed, and the accuracy of the fitting equation was verified. Through mathematical statistical analysis, the normal distribution curve of fatigue life was fitted, and the variation law of normal distribution curve with moisture content and fatigue load was determined.

609-616

Authors: Emil TUDOR, Mihai-Gabriel MATACHE, Ionuț VASILE, Ion-Cătălin SBURLAN, Vasilica ȘTEFAN

The development of an electric vehicle harvester for aquatic vegetation is a technical challenge for researchers due to specific requirements: high-torque operation at low travel speeds, high maneuverability, high load capacity, low draught, and affordable price. The collective of authors proposed an electro-hydraulic architecture based on paddles driven by hydraulic motors for propulsion and auxiliary services also driven by motors and hydraulic actuators. The proposed energy source for the aquatic harvester is electric batteries, it was developed a system of 33 kWh Li-Ion batteries connected in parallel, which power an electronic converter and a 14.5 kW rated power electric motor that drives a hydraulic double-circuit pump. The vehicle can be controlled remotely. The paper presents the prototype made and the results obtained during laboratory tests performed for the electric powering system.

626-634

Authors: ZhiPeng FAN, Zhe MA, HongBo WANG, ZhiHong YU

In order to explore the conveying mechanism of kneaded corn stalk in the screw conveyor and improve the conveying performance of the screw conveyor, the study of the screw conveying process of kneaded corn stalk was carried out, and the simulation model of the screw conveying process of kneaded corn stalk was established by using the discrete element method. The results showed that: The pitch, feed amount and screw shaft speed have significant effects on the productivity and power of screw conveying, and there are significant interactions. The optimal parameters of the multi-factor simulation optimization test were 319.428mm pitch, feed amount of 71.062kg/min, screwshaft speed of 117.034r/min, corresponding productivity of 71.517kg/min and power of 769.84W. This study reveals the screw conveying mechanism of kneaded corn stover, verifies the feasibility of using discrete element simulation to analyze the conveying process of kneaded corn stover, and provides a theoretical basis for improving and optimizing the screw conveying device.

645-654

Authors: Yan CHEN, Hua GUO, Shi FU, Rui ZHANG, Ming ZHANG

The working parameters of the pneumatic sprayer, such as the sprayer's attitude, working airflow, and spraying amount, have an impact on the evenness of seed distribution during the process of vegetation restoration on degraded grasslands . This article focuses on the 4BQD-40C pneumatic sprayer and analyzes the impact of the sprayer's forward speed, the airflow velocity at the sprayer's inlet, and the frequency of the sprayer's swinging nozzle on the spraying quality. The conclusion shows that: 1) the equation of the seed distribution trajectory of the sprayer was obtained, laying the foundation for subsequent research; 2) the swinging frequency of the nozzle is the key factor affecting the spraying quality of the sprayer, and the optimal swinging frequency of the nozzle corresponding to different forward speeds of the sprayer was obtained based on the established trajectory equation; 3) when the sprayer performs spraying operations with the optimized forward speed and swinging frequency, the trajectory of the sprayer's seed distribution was analyzed. It was found that when the nozzle swings at each optimal frequency, the trajectory of the seed distribution is the same, and the sum of the re-sprayed and missed areas in the seed distribution area is equal.

665-672

Authors: Volodymyr KRAVCHUK, Mikhailo IVANIUTA, Viacheslav BRATISHKO, Yuri HUMENIUK, Vitaly KURKA

The article is focused on the determination of the nonlinear relationships between soil compaction, density, and water content. It was found that these properties can be described by the second-order models and used for improving devices for the on-stream soil density measuring. The models for determining the density of loamy soil (at a water content of 20%) in the range from 0.9 to 1.6 g/cm3 with an extremum of 1.35 g/cm3 were improved. A device for the on-stream soil density measuring is proposed. The device operates within the soil compaction range from 0.3 to 1.2 MPa and water content from 10 to 30% at the angle of inclination of the kinematic link  from 15 to 40 degrees. The obtained results can be used in the adaptation of the proposed device for use in precision agriculture.

681-692

Authors: Xin HE, Longfei LI, Xing LIU, Yumeng XIAO, Taowei JIAO, Wei LI

This paper proposed a technical idea of joint operation of conveying and grading and developed a potato conveying and grading device with variable space to realize efficient grading in the field because of the difficulties of field grading in the process of potato harvesting in the hilly mountains of northwest China. Based on field measurement of potato size distribution, the clearance between rotating plates of potato conveying and grading device was determined. The key structural parameters of the rotating plate were obtained by referring to the structure and relevant parameters of the conveying and grading device. Moreover, the conveyor chain elevation angle of the conveying and grading device was determined through the dynamics analysis of potatoes on the conveying and grading device. The inclined plane test determined the inclination angle of the potato guide plate. To reduce the damage to potatoes in the process of conveying and grading, damage analysis was carried out. Finally, Field tests were conducted with conveyor chain elevation angle, unit forward speed, and the conveyor chain line speed as test factors, and the grading accuracy and the damage rate of the potato conveying and grading device as test indexes. The test results showed that when the conveyor chain elevation angle, unit forward speed, and conveyor chain line speed were 21.0°, 0.8 m/s, and 1.3 m/s, respectively, the grading accuracy was 91.4% and the rate of potato damage was 0.88%. The operational performance of the prototype was stable, and all the test evaluation indicators could meet the agronomic requirements of the potato harvester.

21-31

Authors: JunLin MU, JinXing WANG, ShuangXi LIU, Zhen WANG, Hao JIANG, Bo MA, ZhengHui ZHANG, XianLiang HU

The core of intelligent and accurate plant protection of pests is the accurate identification of pest monitoring and early warning model, and the quality of pest sample image is crucial to the model identification accuracy. To solve the problem of complicated background and low contrast colour image samples, in this paper it is proposed a pest accurate segmentation method based on critical point nonlinear enhancement. The segmented image is used as the sample image of the Faster R-CNN model, which can improve the accuracy of the recognition model. Firstly, the original image is segmented by a strong classifier and the image of pest cells with calibrated grids is obtained. Secondly, the Spline adjustment curve is fitted according to the core gray scale range and critical point, and the contrast between pest and mesh in pest monomer image is enhanced based on the Spline adjustment curve. Finally, there are some operations for the enhanced image such as threshold segmentation, contour extraction, morphological transformation and others to obtain the pest image without background interference, and some segmentation experiments are performed to the pest image based on different segmentation methods. The experimental results show that the proposed method can accurately segment the pests in complex background, and the comprehensive evaluation indexes such as recall ratio and precision rate are greater than or equal to 91.5%, which is better than the traditional segmentation method.

41-50

Authors: Yao YUE, Haiqing TIAN, Fei LIU, Tao ZHANG, Dapeng LI, Di WANG

Aiming at the problems of large vibrations and noise of a working stalk rubbing machine, this paper took the 9R-60 rubbing machine as the research object and used the B&K modal test system and the vibration test system to analyse the modal and no-load conditions of the whole machine. Through analysing modal test data, it was concluded that the first five natural frequencies of the machine were 95.262 Hz, 144.386 Hz, 288.198 Hz, 313.719 Hz and 326.140 Hz. The results showed that spindle rotation had a more significant effect on the vibration than the feed chain rotation; the maximum vibration acceleration occurred at the small motor frame at a spindle speed of 1700 r·min-1 and a feed chain speed of 0.65 m·s-1, which was 135.539 m·s-2. The distribution of the amplitude statistical characteristics of the vibration signals follows the normal distribution and belongs to the stationary random process. The vibration was a self-excited vibration of the rotating machinery caused by the rotation of the main shaft and a forced vibration excited by the rotation of the same shaft. The research provides a direction for further research on the vibration characteristics of the rubbing machine under load conditions, and provides a theoretical basis for the subsequent vibration reduction design.

60-70

Authors: Lin WAN, Hongchao WANG, Gang CHE, Wensheng SUN, Zhengfa CHEN

In order to improve air pressure utilization and working performance, the direct seed-metering device for rice was designed with spoiler blades embedded in the air cavity. The study was carried out using theoretical analysis and hydrodynamic methods to obtain the optimum structure of the spoiler blades. Taking the rotating speed of the air cavity, the negative pressure of the air cavity, and the filling height as the test factors, the multiple regression analysis and the response surface analysis were carried out to obtain the best working parameters of the seed-metering device with spoiler blades. The results showed that when the rotating speed of the air cavity was 23.56 r/min, the negative pressure of the air cavity was 4.97 kPa and the filling height was 12.82 cm, the qualified index was 95.21%, the missing index was 3.28% and the multiple index was 1.51%, which was the best seeding performance. Comparing the test with the seed-metering device without spoiler blades, the results showed that the installation of spoiler blades can improve the performance of the seed-metering device under the best working parameters. This study provide a reference for the design of direct seed-metering device for rice.

81-90

Authors: Xinyu ZHANG, Dandan CAO, Minghui WANG, Gongpei CUI, Yinggang SHI, Yongjie CUI

The phenotypic information of lettuce leaves can well reflect its health. In order to diagnose the nutrient deficiency types of hydroponic lettuce accurately, non-destructively and quickly in the mid-growth stage, a method for diagnosis of whole lettuce based on random forest algorithm (RF) was proposed. The images of lettuce under four different conditions, K-deficiency, Ca-deficiency, N-deficiency and Normal, were collected and segmented by Extra-green algorithm. Then, features of color, texture and shape were extracted. A RF classification model for the hydroponic lettuce nutrient deficiency diagnosis was constructed and compared with support vector machine (SVM) and back propagation neural network (BP). RF had the best classification effect among the three methods. The overall classification accuracy was 86.32%, Kappa coefficient was 0.82, and it can provide a basis for the prevention and remedies of lettuce deficiency and the scientific management of nutrient solutions.

99-109

Authors: Liang ZHANG, Ming LI, Limin YAO, Jingxin XIE, Xu XIAO, Jingjing HUANG, Jinqi HUANG, Xumeng LI, Kui FANG

Farmland area data is one of the important agricultural basic data, which provides parameter basis for the precise operation of agricultural equipment. In order to meet the technical needs of farmers and agricultural machinery operation service billing for acquiring basic information of farmland, this study proposes a farmland area measuring instrument based on the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. Firstly, the overall design scheme of the measuring instrument, the hardware circuit design scheme and the algorithm design scheme are introduced, and the triangulation area measurement algorithm is emphatically analyzed. Finally, the design of this research is applied. The farmland area measuring instrument measures the area of different shapes of farmland and verifies the measurement accuracy. The results show that the average relative error of the measuring instrument for measuring the area of irregularly shaped farmland is 0.7%, which realizes the rapid and high-precision measurement of the area of arbitrarily shaped farmland. It is hoped that this study can provide some reference for the research on the area measurement of farmland in my country.

119-126

Authors: Weiwei CHENG, Zhonghua LIU

A sunken solar greenhouse has a good heat preservation environment. The influence of the general indoor temperature on the temperature of the roots was evaluated. A wireless sensor and U disk recorder were used to determine the indoor temperatures of a single section and multiple sections in a sunken solar greenhouse. Results showed that the rate of temperature change from in the vertical, horizontal and longitudinal sections in descending order at the opening moment and at the strong light moment. The temperatures in the single cross-section and multiple cross-sections were approximately equal during winter from 00:00 to 8:00 in the morning. These values can be used for calculating theoretically the heat loss in a greenhouse.

138-146

Authors: Bingchuan BIAN, Tao SONG

According to the flow calculation, the basic structure of the sprinkler pipe of the integrated suction and drainage fertilizer truck was designed. Based on the 3D CAD / CAE Software SolidWorks / flow simulation platform, the structural models of three kinds of sprinkler pipes with different layout forms of outlet pipes were established, and the fluid analysis was carried out. According to the distribution of pressure, velocity and flow trace number in the tube, the optimal structure was obtained.

156-166

Authors: Chao HUANG, Shu CHEN, Qing JIANG, Liang-yuan XU

To enable the accurate detection of grain moisture content and improve the efficiency of the drying process, a parallel-plate moisture content detection device (PPMCDD) was developed in this study. Firstly, the detection principle and influencing factors of this device are analyzed. Then the effects of three key factors as distance, thickness, relative area on the accuracy of the device were determined through simulation, and the optimal combination of parameters was obtained through analysis of variance of a regression model and response surface methodology. Finally, a simple test bench is built to verify the effectiveness of PPMCDD by comparative experiment. Through simulation and response surface analysis, the optimal combination parameters are as follows: thickness =1 mm, pacing =19.54 mm, relative area =4023.17 mm2, corresponding to the measured capacitance value of 37.676 pF. By comparative experimental analysis, it is found that the maximal relative error of the moisture content detection device evaluated in this study was 1.58%. The detection error is small, and the device exhibits high accuracy and stability and meets the design requirement.

177-190

Authors: Zhongyi YU, Wei XIONG, Dequan ZHU, Kang XUE, Shun ZHANG, Fuming KUANG, Jinnan QUE, Xiaoshuang ZHANG, Ben HENG

In order to obtain the discrete element contact parameters of wet and viscous paddy field mud particles, an accurate numerical simulation model was constructed. Firstly,, the paddy field mud with an average particle size of 0.2 mm was taken as the research object, and the basic physical parameters and rheological behavior laws were obtained through physical measurements and rotational rheological tests. Based on the slump test, combined with the particle scaling theory and Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) model, and the slump and slump-flow values were taken as response values, the Plackett-Burman test, the steepest climb test and the Box-Behnken test were designed by Design-Expert software to complete the simulation parameters calibration. The optimal significance parameters are as follows: 0.096 J/m2 for the JKR surface energy of mud, 0.13 for the mud-mud restitution coefficient and 0.6 for the mud-steel static friction coefficient. Finally, the mud slump and fluidity verification tests showed that the relative errors between the simulation values and the physical values of slump and slump-flow are 1.73% and 0.42%, and the average error of torque is 2.47%, and the parameters are accurate and reliable. The calibration method can accurately construct the discrete element model of wet-viscous particles, which provides basic data and technical guidance for the coupling mechanism of paddy machinery-mud.

201-210

Authors: Dandy Z. SJECHLAD, S.A. WIDYANTO, B. PURWANGGONO, M. MUNADI

Uneven drying is a prominent problem in the performance of Flatbed type grain dryer. An effort to move around the materials during the drying process is needed in order to get a uniformed drying rate. This paper investigates the conditions of an evenly distributed reduction of materials' water content during drying, using a flatbed dryer and a stirring mechanization system. It is found that ≥ 4rpm stirring rotation produces a relatively even drying result after 1 hour, and that there exists a second airflow that leaked due to the stirring process moving around with the motion of the stirrer.

221-229

Authors: Zuoli FU, Zhiqi ZHENG, Guichuan LI, Yuxiang HUANG, Ruixiang ZHU, Jinpu HE

The pneumatic conveying metering technology is used to enhance the filling and clearing capacity of the seed metering device by forming a rotary air flow field inside the airflow distribution. The simulation test results show that the increase of the number of fan blades, the velocity of flow field at different outlets of the seed cleaning area decreases linearly, but the average velocity basically remains unchanged. The flow field velocity in the seed filling area decreased significantly with the increase of fan angle, and the difference between seed filling area and clearing area remains unchanged. When the blade angles in the filling area are the same, the fan blades size has no effect in flow field velocity.

243-254

Authors: Junming HOU, Enchao YAO, Hongjie ZHU, Weixue HU, Zhaotan REN

To study the types of mechanical damage for castor seeds and their effects on germination, the image processing method was applied to detect the damage affecting germination. Two typical varieties of castor were selected for test. The type of mechanical damage of castor seeds was taken as the factor, the germination rate and germination vigor index were selected as indicators for one-way analysis of variance. The effects of mechanical damage on the germination of castor seeds were analyzed. Different algorithms were applied to extract the features of cracks and seed shell missing, and the corresponding defect parameters were calculated. The results showed that the effects of mechanical damage on the germination rate, germination potential, germination index, and vigor index of castor seeds were significant. The endosperm damage seriously affected the activity of castor seeds and seriously hindered seed germination. According to the analysis of the shell, some castor seeds cracked or there was incomplete shell damage at the same time, the internal endosperm being also damaged. The actual crack length was compared with the length measured by the ultra-depth of field microscope, which found that the margin of error was about 25% and the better error was 10%. Through the morphological processing, it could completely extract the characteristics of castor seed image without seed shells. The error between the extracted feature area and the measured object area function of the super depth of field microscope is about 10%.

265-274

Authors: Zhiwei TIAN, Xinyu XUE, Famin DUAN, Sen YAO, Wei MA

When UAVs apply a pesticide at different speeds, droplet deposition area and canopy vortex area are not at the same location, which prevents droplets from depositing on the backside of leaves and lower part of plants in canopy vortex, and affects spray quality and pests and diseases control effect. To shorten the distance between the two areas and improve droplet penetration, a method for adjusting nozzle inclination angle based on droplet force analysis and tests was proposed in this paper. According to the obtained model, an automatic nozzle angle adjustment system was developed from hardware and software. The experimental results showed that the number of droplets deposited on the entire leaf increased by 21.58% when UAV spraying with the system mounted. The average number of droplets on the front side of the leaf increased by 14.44% while 66.05% was on the backside of the leaf with the system mounted. This indicates that the method and system proposed have a significant impact on improving the UAV spray penetration.

285-294

Authors: Jingyu LI, Sihao ZHANG, Pengfei ZHANG, Wenjun WANG

In order to solve the problems of crop residue clogging, poor soil crushing and low operation efficiency under the stalks mulching condition, the traction combined machine for subsoiling and land preparation was designed. The optimization test was carried out to optimize the stalk cutting device and the soil crushing device under stalk mulching condition. The optimization test used a randomized complete block design, consisting of 10 treatments, in a 5 × 2 factorial arrangement. Each treatment included the combination of coulter types (8W, 13W, 18W, 25W and NW) and soil crushing roller types (with blade angle and without blade angle). The results showed that the combination of the fluted coulters with 8 waves and the soil crushing roller with blade angle was optimal. Finally, the verification test of the whole machine was carried out to evaluate the performance, and the results showed that the average value of subsoiling depth was 35.8 cm, the stability coefficient of subsoiling depth was 93.9% and the soil crushing rate was 53.7%. This research provides an important reference for the structure design of the large multi-functional combined machine for conservation tillage.

305-314

Authors: Xin DU, Cailing LIU, Meng JIANG, Hao YUAN, Lei DAI, Fanglin LI, Zhanpeng GAO

A layered fertilizer shovel is designed to achieve double layer fertilization in response to the current problem of large fertilizer efficiency loss in one-time banding application. The key structural parameters of the layered shovel were designed and the working speed V, the distance L1 between the banding fertilizer discharging pipe and the point-applied fertilizer discharging device and the distance L2 between the fertilizer distribution plate and the point-applied fertilizer discharging device were determined as the main factors affecting the layered distance h. A quadratic regression model between factors and indicators was established by single-factor test and response surface analysis. With the layered distance h=10 cm as the optimization target, the predicted value of layered distance h is 10 cm when V, L1 and L2 are 2.7 km/h, 15.3 cm and 18.2 cm, respectively, and the simulation test is conducted to verify the combination of the parameters obtained from the optimization solution, and the simulated value of layered distance h is 9.9 cm, which is a small error compared with the predicted value. The field test was conducted under the optimal combination of parameters, and the results showed that the layered distance h was 9.1 cm at the working speed V of 2.7 km/h, and the relative error was 8.1% compared with the simulation value, which can be considered as a high reliability of the simulation test, and the simulation test can accurately simulate the distribution of fertilizer particles in the real environment in the field. When the working speed V is 1.8-5.4 km/h, the distribution range of layered distance h is 8.0-9.5 cm, which can meet the agronomic requirements of fertilizer layered application.

324-332

Authors: Hongguang YANG, Bing WANG, Fengwei GU, Feng WU, Yanhua ZHANG, Zhichao HU

Lack of sufficient knowledge about the physical and mechanical properties of onion can result in higher waste during harvesting and post-harvesting. The objective of this work was to determine some physical and mechanical properties of onion cultivated in China. These properties include linear dimensions, mass, shape index, pull-out force, compression and shear forces. The mean longitudinal diameter of bulb (BLD), transverse diameter of bulb (BTD), bulb weight (BW), pull-out force of bulb (BPF), depth of the bulb buried in the soil (BSD), bulb shape index (BSI), diameter of cauloid (CD), circumferential distribution of root systems (RCD), longitudinal length of root systems (RLL) and weight of root systems (RW) were 78.1±9.6 mm, 89.6±10.1 mm, 333.0±101.7 g, 43.9±21.6 N, 35.7±8.7 mm, 1.2±0.1, 15.3±3.7 mm, 89.2±19.7 mm, 42.9±10.0 mm and 0.8±0.4 g. In the study of mechanical properties of onions, the maximum compression force (MCF) required for compression deformation 10mm of bulb was 462.2N, and the maximum shear failure force (MSF) required for shearing of cauloid was 113.8 N. The results of the research will be very useful in the design and optimization of harvest and postharvest machines with reduced waste and damage.

341-349

Authors: Fulong XU, Junlin HE, Yuehua WANG, Jiaojiao LI

In view of the problem of plant entanglement threshing roller in the process of mechanized flax harvesting, a comb-brush air-suction composite flax capsule harvesting test stand was designed based on the harvesting method of harvesting capsules independently and then breaking the capsules to thresh them. The following four parameters were selected as experimental factors: the shape of comb tooth cross-section, the rotational speed of comb roller, the relative speed of machine travel and the air volume of centrifugal fan. The following four indicators were chosen as the experimental indicators: capsule removal rate, capsule breakage rate, capsule collection rate and plant winding rate. A four-factor and three-level orthogonal test was conducted. The results showed that the optimal combination of test factors was as follows: the shape of comb tooth cross-section was rectangular, the rotational speed of the brush roller was 90 rad/min, the speed of machine travel relative to the plant was 80 mm/s and the air volume of centrifugal fan was 6000 m3/h. Under the condition of better experiment parameters combination, the capsule removal rate was 96.45%, capsule shell breaking rate was 98.79%, capsule collection rate was 95.65% and flax plants winding rate was 2.52%. The comb-brush air-suction composite flax capsule harvesting test bench provided the feasibility scheme for the problem of plant winding thresher roller and capsule collection.

367-372

Authors: Dejiang LIU, Yan GONG, Yingchun ZHU, Kehen YAO, Xiao CHEN, Guo WANG, Xiao ZHANG

Aiming at the trouble of low survival rate of cantaloupe seedling in hyperthermia, drought and dry land in Turpan region of China, the existing transplanting machine is the key to mechanized and non-destructive transportation and planting of large plants of young tender melon seedlings, root water injection, and precise soil piling in planting holes，and other technical difficulties. The design of mulch film planting cantaloupe transplanter for laying pipes belts and membranes, watering and transplanting, which can complete rotary tillage, spreading drip irrigation belts, laying mulch and covering the soil around the membrane, transplanting pot seedlings on the membrane, and water injection at the bottom. This machine puts the water injection pipeline under the inner side of the transplanter, and through the multi-point linkage electric control, the seedling preservation water is injected into the bottom of the seedlings pot while the seedlings are transferred, which not only ensures the survival rate of the melon seedlings, but also an accurate piling of the planting hole is realized. The technology of transplanting with water and piled soil for planting holes effectively solved the technical problems of mechanized transplanting of cantaloupe under high temperature and arid climate conditions in Turpan. After the cantaloupe seedlings were transplanted in dry land, the probability of survival was more than 96.9% after seven point five hours of drip irrigation. Operating efficiency can reach 0.067 hectares per hour, eight times as much as manual transplanting. The speed of transplanting machine is about 1.1 m/s, the quality of transplanting rate was 93.26 percent. The operating standards of these transplanters meet the agronomic requirements for transplanting cantaloupe.

383-394

Authors: Baiqiang ZUO, Shuqi SHANG, Xiaoning HE, Zenghui GAO, Wei LIU, Chunxiao ZHANG, Zhenjia MA, Dongwei WANG

For the peanut combine harvester excavation process resistance, poor soil crushing effect and poor reliability of the problem, the excavation shovel optimization needs improvement. Firstly, a mechanical model of the resistance of the excavation shovel was established to investigate the key factors affecting the degree of resistance of the excavation shovel. Next, the design of the main parameters of the excavation shovel was done to determine the range of values of the main factors affecting the peanut excavation shovel. EDEM software was used to simulate and analyse the excavation process and to explore the influence law of excavation shovel parameters on the resistance. Improvements were made to the excavation shovel, discrete element simulation tests were used to demonstrate that the optimized excavation device had better resistance reduction and soil crushing than the original device. By designing a three-factor, three-level orthogonal simulation test, the best parameters for the excavation shovel were obtained: the shovel surface inclination is 20°, the excavation depth is 131mm, and the shovel surface width is 277mm. Field trials were conducted under the optimal combination of parameters to test the reliability of the improved digging shovel. Compared with the operating effectiveness of the original machine, the result was improved to some extent. It proves that the optimized design of excavating shovel is reasonable and can improve the operation effect of peanut harvester.

406-414

Authors: Qiankun FU, Jun FU, Zhi CHEN, Luquan REN

In the harvest of lodged corn in hilly areas, the low position of corn ears and the large slope of the land caused severe losses. The comprehensive performance of loss reduction and terrain adaptability was studied on three small corn harvesters. The tested harvesters were 4-row 4YZP-4Y wheeled harvester, 2-row 4YZLP-2C crawler harvester and 2-row 4YZLP-2C-AF crawler harvester equipped with spiral lifers. The results showed that the all-speed corn ear loss and grain loss of the 4YZP-4Y harvester were 55.6% and 57.6% lower than those of the 4YZLP-2C harvester, while those of the 4YZLP-2C-AF harvester was 23.2% and 17.3%, lower than in the case of the 4YZLP-2C harvester. The all-height corn ear loss and grain loss of the 4YZP-4Y harvester were 35.2% and 56.6% lower than those of the 4YZLP-2C harvester, those of the 4YZLP-2C-AF harvester were 19.9% and 24.9% lower than in the case of the 4YZLP-2C harvester. The smaller header width and larger roller compacted area of the 4YZLP-2C harvester were the main factors that caused harvest loss. Wider harvester header, auxiliary feeding devices and smaller roller compacted area were key methods to reduce the harvest loss of lodged corn in hilly areas. This study provides technical scheme and design references for harvesters on lodged corn in hilly areas.

424-434

Authors: Yize SHI, Jiajia YU, Muhua LIU, Gaoliang ZHANG, Fan LU, Zhangxing QIN, Peng FANG, Xiongfei CHEN

Aiming at the poor performance and low efficiency of moist fertilizers, a cam-linkage self-cleaning fertilizer apparatus is designed. The cam-linkage mechanism matched with the self-cleaning device is applied to scrape off the residuals, and the structural parameters of flute cam in the wheel are obtained by using the polar equations. The physical characteristics of Stanley compound fertilizer, Kingenta compound fertilizer and Kingenta dual-effect nitro-fertilizer are analyzed to build the discharging model and obtain the key parameters, such as the wheel diameter, the groove number. The trajectory of fertilizer is introduced for the scraper plate. To evaluate the performance, a full factorial experiment including fertilizer types, moisture content and rotating speed is conducted, taking the discharging and coefficient of variation as the evaluation indicators. The results show that in the rotation of 10-50 r/min, the cam-linkage self-cleaning fertilizer apparatus could discharge compound fertilizers with a moisture content less than 8%, and the coefficient of variation is 0.12% -8.21%. In addition, the relationship between the rotating speed and the discharging has the linear relationship, and the determination coefficient R² are more than 0.974. This study helps promoting the deep fertilization technology and equipment in southern rice region.

448-456

Authors: Iulian ILIE

Equipment and methods for microfabrication and micromeasurements are under constant development. There are a multitude of possibilities to connect and control equipment for control and measurements adapted with the development of Industry 4.0. Using the terms Internet of Things, 3D printing, virtual reality, augmented reality, collaborative robots, microfabrication, etc. and related applications are common in daily research and innovation activity. This paper presents the construction of a mechatronic system and the measurement procedures used in the working mode. Experimental results and their interpretation as well as the final conclusions of this paper are presented. The mecatronic system is intended for use in the main fields such as automotive, aeronautics, robotics, agriculture and others.

471-480

Authors: Mihai Gabriel MATACHE, Florin Bogdan MARIN, Carmela GURAU, Gheorghe GURAU, Mihaela MARIN, Iuliana GĂGEANU, Alexandru IONESCU

For negative effects minimization generated by agriculture on the environment, there were established a series of measures regarding the reduction of the amount of fertilizers and phytosanitary substances used. Thus, one of the innovative technologies appeared on the market is represented by the usage of some automated equipment for selective spraying of targeted plants, this way significantly reducing the amount of active substances used. The paper presents the usage of a technique specific to artificial intelligence for identification of target crops and their proper treatment. Thus, was developed a convolutional neural network formed of six neuron layers, which was used for analysis of crop field images recorded with a LOGITECH HD Pro C92.0 video camera. The network was developed in C++ programming language, using function libraries from OpenCV, and has run on a Dell laptop, with Intel i8 processor. Following images analysis and targeted plants identification, from laptop there are sent ON/OFF commands through an Arduino microcontroller toward the electrical microvalves mounted on the nozzles of a self-propelled electric spraying machine having a working width of 8 m, with the purpose of spot-spraying the crop plants and reducing the amount of used substances. In this paper are presented the experiments done for testing the neural network efficiency.

491-498

Authors: Tao ZHANG, Fei HAO, Yuge BI, Jianmin DU, Weiqiang PI, Yanbin ZHANG, Xiangbing ZHU, Xinchao GAO, Eerdumutu JIN

Accurate spatial distribution of grassland degradation indicator species is of great significance for grassland degradation monitoring. In order to realize the intelligent remote sensing grassland degradation monitoring task, this paper collects remote sensing data of three degradation indicator species of desert grassland, namely, constructive species, dominant species, and companion species, through the UAV hyperspectral remote sensing platform, and proposes a multi-feature fusion (MFF) classification model. In addition, vertical convolution, horizontal convolution, and group convolution mechanisms are introduced to further reduce the number of model parameters and effectively improve the computational efficiency of the model. The results show that the overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of the model can reach 91.81% and 0.8473, respectively, and it also has better classification performance and computational efficiency compared to different deep learning classification models. This study provides a new method for high-precision and efficient fine classification study of degradation indicator species in grasslands.

511-520

Authors: Zenghui GAO, Shuqi SHANG, Nan XU, Dansong YUE, Jinming ZHENG, Dongwei WANG

In order to improve the efficiency of peanut harvesting in China, realize the deep integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy in peanut production and promote the development of peanut industry. According to the research on peanut planting agronomy and plant biological characteristics, this paper focuses on the analysis of the clamping and collecting scheme of the three-ridge six-row peanut combine harvester, and designs the structure of the clamping and collecting device to solve the situation that the peanut clamping and collecting process is prone to congestion under large feeding volume. By analysing the forces on the peanut plant, the structure of the core fruit picking device has been designed, and the factors and parameters affecting the effectiveness of the peanut picking operation have been optimised through experimental research using the peanut leakage and crushing rates as indicators. The whole machine structure of the three-ridge six-row peanut combine harvester was designed to ensure that the peanut combine harvester can complete the processes of harvesting, digging, clamping and conveying, soil removal, collecting, fruit picking, cleaning and fruit collection at one time. Finally, through field tests on the three-ridge six-row peanut combine harvester, it was verified that the peanut leakage rate was 1.92% and the crushing rate was 0.84% at different forward speeds, and all of them were congested, which met the national peanut harvesting standards.

533-542

Authors: Volodymyr BULGAKOV, Roman ANTOSHCHENKOV, Valerii ADAMCHUK, Ivan HALYCH, Yevhen IHNATIEV, Ivan BELOEV, Semjons IVANOVS

When designing and determining the potential technical capabilities and characteristics of the tractor, the so-called traction calculation is carried out. The aim of the work is to study regularities of changes in the traction and coupling characteristics of a tractor with an articulated frame depending on the size of the ballast, the presence of dual wheels and other parameters, using the KhTZ-242K tractor as an example. The numerical solution of the deduced mathematical model made it possible to obtain graphical dependences of the change in the main traction and coupling characteristics of the tractor KhTZ-242K depending on the mass of the tractor, which varied from 8600 kg to 10100 kg by changing the ballast mass. The maximum tractive power of the tractor on single wheels without a ballast is 121 kW, which is achieved at a speed of 12 km∙h–1, and on single wheels with a ballast 122 kW, at a speed of 15 km∙h–1. This, in its turn, greatly affects the productivity and fuel efficiency of the aggregate.

549-558

Authors: Jin LI, Xiaolin FAN, Xianmin WANG, Risheng CHEN, Gangshun RAO, Tingting DUAN

The cultivation of salt-tolerant rice (sea rice) along beaches has become an effective measure for the restoration and utilization of saline-sodic land, so this paper studies the effects of irrigation and nitrogen fertilization on soil Na+ in root zone and sea rice yield, and provides a scientific basis for planting sea rice. A pot experiment (two-factor split plot) of sea rice with salt stress (10 g NaCl/kg soil) was carried out. The main plot consists of three types of irrigation methods: flooding irrigation (F), intermittent irrigation (I), and controlled irrigation (C). The subplots are three types of nitrogen fertilizers: urea (U), controlled-release urea (R), and mixed fertilizer (M) with U and R. The results showed: (1) The soil water-soluble Na+ of MI was significantly smaller than that of other treatments with NaCl, but the Ca2+/Na+ and Mg2+/Na+ were opposite. (2) The nitrogen uptake and dry weight of rice of MI were significantly larger than those of other treatments with NaCl, and were respectively 23% and 32% higher than UI, 49% and 16% higher than MF, 56% and 38% higher than UF, 75% and 61% higher than RI, 76% and 50% higher than RF. (3) The sea rice yield of MI was increased by 105%, 154%, 262%, 338%, and 428% compared with MF, RF, UF, RI, and UI, respectively. Therefore, the MI can effectively reduce the Na+ and increase the Ca2+/Na+ and Mg2+/Na+ in root layer soil, and promote the nitrogen absorption and production of sea rice. So the article recommends that M and I methods should be adapted to plant sea rice on coastal saline-sodic soil.

569-578

Authors: Mingjian RUAN, Hanlu JIANG, Haili ZHOU, Jun YE, Jinpeng HU

Aiming at the problems of poor applicability of traditional header height detection mechanism, poor stability and large lag of automatic control system of combine harvesters, an automatic control system of header height of combine harvester was designed, which mainly included the profiling mechanism, controller, proportional valve, manual operation handle and display module. The profiling detection mechanism was composed of angle sensor, profiling plate, torsion spring and other structures. The key structural parameters of the profiling mechanism were determined by using the Adams simulation software and its working performance was verified. The gray prediction PID algorithm of header height was used to reduce the lag of the control model. The control system detected the height of the header from the ground through the profiling mechanism. After being processed by the controller, the height of the header was changed by adjusting the expansion of the header oil cylinder. The field test results showed that the working performance of the header automatic control system was stable. Under the working conditions of preset header height of 100mm and 200mm, the average deviation of the control system was within 21 mm, which met the real-time control demand of header height during normal operation of combine harvester. This research could provide intelligent design methods of combine harvesters.

589-598

Authors: Shengqiao XIE, Yang BAI, Qilin AN, Jian SONG, Xiuying TANG, Fuxiang XIE

Crop diseases have an important impact on the safe production of food. Therefore, the automated identification of pre-crop diseases is very important for farmers to increase production and income. In this paper, a tomato leaf disease identification method based on the optimized MobileNetV2 model is proposed. A dataset of 20,400 tomato disease images was created based on tomato disease images taken from the greenhouse and obtained from the PlantVillage database. The optimized MobileNetV2 model was trained with the dataset to obtain a classification model for tomato leaf diseases. The average recognition accuracy of the model is 98.3% and the recall rate is 94.9%, which is 1.2% and 3.9% higher than the original model, respectively, after experimental validation. The average prediction speed of the model for a single image is about 76 ms, which is 2.94% better than the original model. To verify the performance of the optimized MobileNetV2 model, it was compared with the Xception, Inception, and VGG16 feature extraction network models using migration learning, respectively. The experimental results show that the average recognition accuracy of the model is 0.4 to 2.4 percentage points higher than that of the Xception, Inception, and VGG16 models. It can provide technical support for the identification of tomato diseases, and is also important for plant growth monitoring under precision agriculture.

607-616

Authors: Dezhi REN, Luji ZHANG, Wanyuan HUANG, Huiting CHENG, Tian'yi HE, Jun MENG

To realize the integrated technology of biochar return to the soil, the key components of the biochar discharge system applicable to the biochar return machine were designed, and the force analysis of the return shovel was carried out to obtain the main working parameters affecting the effect of biochar return. Single factor and multi factor simulation tests were conducted with the coefficient of variation of biochar content uniformity as evaluation indexes, and outlet distance, conduit diameter, baffle angle as influencing factors. The data were processed and parameters were optimized using Design-Expert, and the results were optimized and experimentally verified. The results from the experimental the coefficient of variation of biochar content uniformity and simulation data from the model showed good agreement. Therefore, the procedures of this study can be used for the integrated technology of biochar return.

629-640

Authors: Fandi ZENG, Xuying LI, Hongbin BAI, Ji CUI, Xuening LIU, Yongzhi ZHANG

The movement of plug seedlings and the pots damage mechanism are deeply studied during the planting process, and the planting components are optimized. The Tekscan pressure distribution measurement system was used to measure the mechanical characteristics of the drop impact between the whole plug seedlings and the pots. The relative error between the collision impact force of the plug seedlings and the collision impact force of the pot is less than 20%. Therefore, a drop impact test using the pot allows the whole plug seedling to be characterized. The Hertz-Mindlin with bonding model was used to build a simulation model of the pot based on essential physical parameters. The Plackett-Burman test and the steepest climbing test determined the significant parameters and optimal intervals affecting the collision impact force: the rolling friction coefficient between the pot and pot was 0.35~0.38, the bond stiffness was 0.2~0.6 MN·m-3, and the bond radius was 1.56~1.98 mm. Finally, the Box-Behnken test was performed and the quadratic regression model of the collision impact force was developed. Taking the collision impact force with a drop height of 350 mm as the target, the optimal solution is obtained: the rolling friction coefficient between the pot and pot was 0.35, the bond stiffness was 0.53 MN·m-3, and bond radius 1.97 mm. The average value was used for other insignificant influence parameters. The simulation results are compared with the physical test, and the relative error is 3.65%. Therefore, the pot model established by this simulation parameter can represent the actual drop impact of the pots.

649-658

Authors: Baiqiang ZUO, Shuqi SHANG, Xiaoning HE, Zelong ZHAO, Dongjie LI, Wei LIU, Xu LI, Dongwei WANG

In order to reduce the high resistance problem during peanut digging shovel operation and improve the soil loosening effect, a bionic peanut digging shovel was designed according to the streamlined profile of the head of the golden cicada, and the range of values of the digging operation parameters was analyzed. A discrete element model was developed to verify that the operational resistance of the bionic excavation shovel is lower than that of the flat shovel. The reliability of the simulation test was confirmed by conducting a resistance test on the excavation shovel through a soil trench test. A three-factor, three-water orthogonal combination test was designed to determine the optimal operating parameters of the excavation shovel: the bevel angle of the shovel blade was 55°, the digging depth was 130 mm, and the width of the shovel face was 309 mm. The paper can provide a reference for designing and optimizing peanut-digging shovels.

669-680

Authors: Solaf ABD EL-REHEEM, Mahmoud AWAD, Fatma ABD EL GAWAD, Mokhtar COTTB, Mahmoud OKASHA

The current study aimed to test and evaluate sheets’ different perforation shapes, brake angles, and milling durations to improve the quality of long-grain white rice from an abrasive milling machine. The investigated parameters of head rice yield, broken rice percentage, whitening degree, and rice bulk temperature were influenced by five sheets with five perforated shapes (horizontal, vertical, inclined, 1 mm round holes, and 1.5 mm round holes), three brake angles (0, 45, and 90º), and four milling durations (60, 70, 80, and 90 s). The results showed that the horizontal rectangular perforated sheet resulted in the highest value of head rice yield and the lowest value of broken rice. On the other hand, the vertical rectangular perforated sheet resulted in the highest whitening degree, followed by the inclined rectangular perforated sheet. The round holes (1.0 mm and 1.5 mm diameter) are not recommended for the long-grain whitening process because of the resulting high values of broken kernels, rice bulk temperature after the whitening process, and lower values of whitening degree. The brake angle of 90º resulted in the highest value of broken rice for all studied perforated sheets used in this study. This study recommended that the optimum operating conditions were using the horizontal rectangular perforated sheet, zero degree brake angle and milling duration of 80 s.

693-701

Authors: Wenlong LI, Jiahao YANG, Wenting JIN, Liuxuan MA, Yiyuan GE, Jinbo ZHANG, Yuqi ZHUANSUN

In order to explore the best parameters for the decomposition of corn straw for return to the field under extremely cold temperature conditions in northeast China, an orthogonal test was used to test the decomposition of corn straw and to analyse the effects of factors such as straw return depth, straw return amount, straw stalk part and decomposer concentration on the decomposition efficiency of corn straw. The results showed that the most significant effect on the decomposition efficiency of cold land corn straw was the amount of straw returned to the field, followed by the concentration of decomposer and the depth of straw returned to the field, and the least effect was the straw part. Among them, the amount of straw returned to the field showed a negative correlation on the decomposition efficiency of cold land corn straw; the concentration of decomposer, the depth of straw returned to the field and the straw part showed a positive correlation on the decomposition efficiency of cold land corn straw.

711-721

Authors: Zhu ZHAO, Zhongnan WANG, Bintong ZHAO, Yuqiu SONG, Mingjin XIN

The ant (Pheidole megacephala, Fabricius) has a unique and hard mandibular structure to cut branches and crush hard food. Inspired by this special geometric structure of the mandibular teeth, a stereoscopic microscope was used to view the image of the mandible of the ant. The Origin and AutoCAD software were used to obtain the outer profile of the mandibular teeth of the ant. The outer profile of the ant's mandibular teeth was fitted and expressed by five-order polynomial function. According to the analysis of the profile curve of the maxillary teeth, the fourth tooth is the most convex and the sharpest. The fourth tooth of the ant plays a key role in its feeding process, therefore, the structural parameters of the fourth maxillary tooth were selected as bionic elements for bionic blade design. To compare the cutting performance of the bionic and ordinary flat blades, the performance of bionic blade and the ordinary blade were conducted by using ANSYS software, the cutting force-deformation characteristics were tested using the Rapid TA practical texture analyser. The results of the element simulation showed that the mechanical properties of bionic blade were better than those of the ordinary blade. The results of the cutting experiments indicated that under the loading speed of 5 mm/s, the maximum cutting force of the bionic blade was 137.51 N, which is 12.17 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. The average cutting force of the bionic blade was 96.56 N, which is 11.58 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. The cutting energy consumption of the bionic blade was 9.68 J, which is 11.92 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. Under the loading speed of 10 mm/s, the maximum cutting force of the bionic blade was 143.88 N, which is 10.37 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. The average cutting force of the bionic blade was 101.03 N, which is 9.77 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. The cutting energy consumption of the bionic blade was 10.14 J, which is 9.95 % lower than that of the ordinary flat blade. The experimental results suggested that the bionic blade can effectively reduce the cutting force and energy consumption; thus, the bionic blade is more suitable for cutting stalks. These results will be helpful in the development of cutting elements for cutting and chopping of corn stover and other processing machinery.

729-734

Authors: Mustaqimah MUSTAQIMAH, Muhammad ANAS MUFTI, Ramayanty BULAN, Oscar HARIS

This study aims to determine the performance of a plastic mulch hole making machine and its electrical power requirements. The study begins by providing speed variations on the engine sprocket, calculating the working capacity of the machine, and analysing the power requirements of the electric motor. The results showed that the engine sprocket could perform an optimal rotation speed for punching holes in plastic mulch. Most holes were created in the treatment with a rotational speed of 70 rpm, 16 holes per 5 m of plastic mulch. Overall, the performance of the plastic mulch punching machine has been able to provide fixes in making holes in mulch plastic. Of the three treatments, the speed variations of the plastic mulch punching machine provided perforations with the criteria of perfect and partial perforation. The highest percentage of ideal perforation was found in the treatment with a rotational speed of 29 rpm, 86%, and the lowest was found in the treatment with a rotational speed of 25 rpm, 9.3%. The coefficient of determination between the rotational speed of the machine and the performance of the machine to punch holes in the plastic mulch can be modelled by a polynomial equation.

747-756

Authors: S.Şt. BIRIȘ, A-M. CONSTANTIN, D. ANGHELACHE, I. GĂGEANU, D. CUJBESCU, F. NENCIU, I. VOICEA, Gh. MATEI, L. D. POPA, M. F. DUȚU, N. UNGUREANU, T. ŻELAZIŃSKI, L. PERIŞOARĂ, G. FODOREAN

Vibrations are dynamic phenomena occurring in elastic or quasi-elastic media after a local excitation and becoming manifested by propagating the excitation within the medium in the form of some elastic oscillations. Thus, depending on the phenomenon dynamics, there can be met vibrations with low variation frequencies, characteristic to the mechanical structures, structures in constructions and earthquake waves, as well as vibrations with high variation frequencies. The vibration measuring is performed on a straw cereal harvesting machine with an axial threshing apparatus ("CASE IH") in two conditions: in a stationary position and during work, by using transducers for each of the main working parts of the harvester: thresher, header (stripper), chassis and operator's chair. On the basis of the values of longitudinal, cross and vertical accelerations, measured at various frequencies in the two operating conditions of the harvester (at stationary and during work), the effect of the vibrations is established on each of these parts and, finally, cumulated, the vibrations sent to the operator's chair, the nomograms following to be traced and to be established the range with the limits up to which these are not dangerous for the operator's health.

767-780

Authors: Muddassar SARFRAZ, Nicolae-Valentin VLĂDUŢ, Lucian-Ionel CIOCA, Larisa IVASCU

Recognizing the factors stimulating the student's academic performance requires investigating different learning strategies influencing teachers' self-efficacy. With the growing diversity of teaching methods, motivational and instructional strategies have gained significant attention, potentially leading educationists to use them as the critical benchmark of superior student performance. This study’s primary objective is to analyze the impact of teaching strategies on student academic performance while considering the mediating role of teachers' self-efficacy. The data was collected from 260 students from different universities and colleges by using the convenience sampling method. The study results reveal that motivational and instructional strategies significantly affect teacher self-efficacy and student academic performance. Teacher self-efficacy mediates the relationship between instructional strategies, motivational strategies, and student academic performance.

789-797

Authors: Kaixing ZHANG, Guoliang MA, Jingfeng LI,, Xiuyan ZHAO

In order to solve the problems of poor universality and complex structure of the current air-suction precision seed metering device for small vegetable seeds, an air-suction precision seed metering device based on the physical characteristics of small vegetable seeds was developed. The physical characteristics of several typical small vegetable seeds were measured to provide a theoretical basis for the design of air-suction precision seed metering device. Analyzed the force on the seed during seed metering, and used discrete element method to analyze the overall state of the seed at different times in combination with the basic structure. The experiment was designed with the pass rate, replay rate and miss rate as experimental indicators. The regression model was established to obtain the reasonable range of each parameter. The experimental results showed that when the rotary table speed was 28.65 r/min and the working negative pressure was 4.40 kPa, the seeding pass rate of the seed meter was 91.07%, the replay rate was 4.70%, and the missed rate was 4.23%.

809-816

Authors: Lili NIE, Fan JIAO, Tingting YANG, Zhenyu LIU

To investigate the mechanism of the movement law of sheep and theoretically support the study on the herd effect, a herd effect model based on the agent and cellular automata technology is built. The law of the herd effect is defined with the use of PyCharm for simulation, based on the characteristics of the flock tending to the top sheep. The flock activity area falls into several two-dimensional cell space structures, and the grid with the cell state of "sheep" in the cell space structure is considered a type of agent. The model assumed that there are five behaviors, including standing, walking slowly, looking for the leader, random and avoiding collisions in four scenarios. A herd effect model is built, the herd behavior is simulated, and the simulation results are compared with the actual herd behavior trajectory. The mean square error between the calculation model and the reality is 1.025. As revealed by the results, the model exhibits effective applicability, so it can better describe the trajectory of real herd behavior and provide theoretical guidance for the study on the herd effect.

827-834

Authors: Zhao FAN, Zhang JIAWEI, Zhi JIHAO

As a famous Chinese traditional medicine, the Astragalus polysaccharide (APS) market is continually expanding, while the quality of APS cannot be guaranteed. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy has been widely used in the detection of Chinese herbal medicines and traditional Chinese medicine. In this study, NIR spectroscopy was used to identify the adulterants of APS. Prepare adulterated mixtures of APS with 75%, and 50% content, respectively. PLS-DA and SIMCA models were developed for 2-classification of APS, APS mixture (75%+50%), and 3-classification of APS, 75% APS mixture and 50% APS mixture, respectively. In the 2-classification, the correct classification rate of both the calibration set and the test set of the PLS-DA and SIMCA models is 100%. In the 3-classification, the correct classification rates of calibration set and test set for PLS-DA were 97.5% and 96.67%, respectively; the correct classification rates of calibration set and test for SIMCA were 98.33% and 100%, respectively. The study showed that it is feasible to identify adulterated Astragalus polysaccharides using near-infrared spectroscopy.

844-852

Authors: Rong FAN, Wei LI, Zhiming WU, Bin BU

In order to reduce the drift loss of small droplets sprayed at low altitudes and low volume, a two-channel two-phase electric centrifugal nozzle was designed. The three-dimensional full-size numerical simulation of the flow field in the nozzle was carried out using Fluent software, and the radial distribution characteristics and axial variation of the flow field were studied. The relationships between the motor voltage and the atomizing disc's speed, between the nozzle's inlet pressure and its flow rate were determined. The variations of the droplet size and the droplet spectrum width with the atomizing disc and flow rate were revealed. The results showed that the rotation speed and flow rate were the important factors affecting the droplet's middle diameter and spectrum width. When the rotation speed of atomizing disc was 4000 r/min, the droplet spectrum width exhibited the narrowest, and the middle diameter of the droplet volume was 231.9 μm. The droplet coverage density was higher, meeting the requirements of low-volume aviation spraying control. This study provides a theoretical basis for optimizing nozzle configuration and developing variable spray devices.

861-872

Authors: Ying WANG, Xiao Jun QIAO, ZhiBin WANG

Ozone is a strong oxidant and strong disinfectant that has a strong anti-pathogenic effect on bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. Because of its high reactivity, strong permeability, low residue, and other advantages, the application of ozone is gaining more and more attention, and ozone has been widely used in water treatment, equipment disinfection, public scene disinfection, and other fields. The purpose of this review is to discuss the use of ozone technology for animal and plant protection that can be applied to agriculture, and to emphasize the need for further studies to determine the optimal concentration and application of ozone for different crops so that, in the future, ozone technology can be applied in agriculture to gain a significant competitive advantage and improve product safety.

885-895

Authors: Yongfei SUN, Lei SHI, Fanting KONG, Qing XIE, Teng WU, Changlin CHEN

The working quality of a cotton stripper harvester is limited by the efficiency of onboard seed cotton cleaners. As a basis for research in the design of a cotton stripper harvester prototype, the bench cleaning tests were designed to study the effect of structural and technological parameters on the loss rate and impurities rate of the cleaner. According to the features of different test factors, a combined orthogonal test was applied to determine the best combination of the sawtooth distance, saw cylinder diameter, and cleaning distance. With these parameters fixed, the optimal parameters for the cleaning distance, saw cylinder rotating speed, and brush thickness were obtained using a quadratic-regression rotatable orthogonal test. The best parameter configuration to ensure the cleaning quality of the onboard seed cotton pre-cleaner included the following structural parameters: sawtooth distance of 38 mm and saw cylinder diameter of 340 mm, and technological parameters: rotating speed of 282–288 rpm, clearance of 12.55–14.84 mm, and brush thickness of 8.37–9.69 mm, which decreased the loss rate to less than 10% and the impurities rate to less than 6%. The reliability of the theoretical analysis results was verified by a comparison with experimental results. The experimental results provide a theoretical basis and technical reference for the research and the structural design of seed cotton pre-cleaners.

906-917

Authors: Xiangqian DONG, Huina ZHENG, Chen SU, Yonglei LI, Jiannong SONG, Jicheng WANG

In this paper, the vibration characteristics of the 1ST-460 vibration subsoiler was analyzed. In order to solve the problem of vibration imbalance caused by the vibration component under the action of multiple groups of vibration shovels, the optimal combination mode of the vibration component under the interaction of multiple groups of shovels was obtained. Piezoelectric accelerometers are fixed symmetrically on the frame of the subsoiler to measure the vibration at different positions. TST5910 dynamic signal test and analysis system is used to collect and process the acceleration data. Non-load tests were carried out with different initial eccentric phase angle combination. Results showed that the combination of [0°, 180°, 180°, 0°] (symmetrically up and down staggered vibration) for the eccentric vibration component of four shovels is the optimal initial phase combination, which can lead to the minimum adverse vibration on the frame. Further tests were conducted under different vibrating frequency and amplitude/eccentric with optimal phase combination. The results showed that, when amplitude/eccentricity ratio was 2.0 and 2.5, frequency of vibration was 6.7 and 8.3 Hz, the required traction force of the subsoiler was stable and significantly reduced, which can improve the soil loosening performance and reduce the harmful vibration on the tractor.

23-32

Authors: Mario CRISTEA, Mihai Gabriel MATACHE, Claudia IONIŢĂ, Lucian Andrei PERIŞOARĂ, Robert Dorin CRISTEA, Vlad Nicolae ARSENOAIA

The research carried out in this paper aimed to create a communication network for a fleet of agricultural vehicles by means of which to transmit and receive information on the status of work, working time, processed areas, number of machines used and much more necessary information. Communication is based on GSM and WiFi standards, which bring the most secure security standards in data protection to this network. The major advantage of the solution presented is that all the important information is concentrated in one place. The proposed communication system consists of a mobile device that routes the WiFi network on a GSM network that has a minimum 3G standard but also works with 5G, depending on the GSM operator and the devices that are mounted on vehicles, which communicate over the WiFi network. The communication device was mounted on an electric tractor, where it was powered by the tractor's power source. In this communication architecture, the vehicle transmitted information to a control centre and also to other vehicles in the vicinity. The system was able to receive data from other devices, authorized in the system, which could be fixed in the field. The collected data were transmitted to a server in a remote location. The obtained results showed a decrease of signal strength while getting further away from the tractor, with good results up to 100 m radius.

41-52

Authors: Zhu ZHAO, Zhongnan WANG, Bintong ZHAO, Yuqiu SONG, Mingjin XIN

At present, the quality of chopping stalks with the use of a corn combine harvester needs improvement. Therefore, this study aims at designing a hob-type stalk chopping device to be installed under the header which can realize multiple groups of parallel longitudinal arrangements. Moreover, the device will be able to cut and crush the root and the middle and upper parts of the stalks. The performance of a finite element analysis corroborated the satisfactory strength and stiffness of the designed chopping blade as the mechanical requirements. Moreover, the influencing working and structural parameters were determined using a theoretical analysis. Regarding the test factors, i.e., the tip angle of the blades, fixed angle and the rotational speed of chopper shaft, single-factor and central composite design tests were also performed. Furthermore, the percentage of the qualified length of chopped stalk and the power consumption of cutting stalk were taken as the evaluation indexes. Accordingly, the results revealed the influencing parameters to be ordered as the spindle speed > fixed angle > tip angle of the blades. Subsequently, the parameters were optimized using the response surface method. Based on the obtained results, the optimized parameters including the spindle speed, the fixed angle and the tip angle of the blades were specified as 1050 r/min, 56°, and 40°, respectively. The experimental validation was also carried out on the optimal combination of the parameters. The qualified lengths of the chopped stalks were found to be 92.9%, which were consistent with the predicted results of the model. Hence, the test results met the design requirements.

67-76

Authors: Zongwei JIA, Jing HAO, Yiming HOU, Ruibin WANG, Ruyi ZHANG, Simin YAO

Apple planting process is often accompanied by the impact of a variety of diseases. A single apple leaf often presents the situation of multiple diseases occurring at the same time, which brings great challenges to fruit farmers' rapid diagnosis and correct control. In this paper, aiming at the rapid detection and recognition of multi-category apple leaf disease, a multi-target detection model is constructed to realize the rapid detection and recognition of single leaf and multi leaf, single disease and multi disease. Through the technical means of manual labeling, data enhancement and parameter optimization, Yolo v4, SSD and Efficientdet are selected to train and evaluate the apple leaf disease data set. The results show that the target detection model based on Yolo v4 achieves better training effect, and its mAP value is 83.34%. The model can meet the needs of rapid disease spot detection and recognition of single leaf single disease and multi leaf multi disease in natural environment.

85-94

Authors: Xuefeng DENG, Song ZHANG, Yi SHAO, Xiaoli YAN

With the development of modern breeding industry, it is very important to count sheep accurately. In the past, herdsmen used manual statistics to count and manage sheep, which was time-consuming, laborious and often had large errors. In recent years, machine learning methods are widely used in automatic target recognition, which can replace manual labor. This system is based on YOLOv5 algorithm for sheep counting management. The counting of sheep was controlled by two - way counting. This improves the accuracy of counting, saves a lot of manpower and material resources for herdsmen, and greatly promotes the management of animal husbandry.

106-116

Authors: Jizhou ZHENG, Yanpeng LI, Lan ZHANG, Xinyu XUE

In order to analyze the influence of liquid sloshing on roll stability of the sprayer, the equivalent mechanical model of liquid sloshing was introduced. A multi-degree-of-freedom model of the sprayer was established that includes the effect of liquid sloshing. An E-level road spectrum was constructed based on sinusoid superposition method according to the grade of the field ground unevenness, and the roll stability of the sprayer under these excitations was investigated. The effects of liquid filling ratio and driving speed were analyzed. The results show that the roll angle decreases with the increase of filling ratio at low speed, but the situation is opposite at high speed. The vertical acceleration of the vehicle body decreases to some extent under some situations due to the presence of the liquid. In general, both the roll angle and the vertical acceleration increase with the increase of the driving speed, especially in the case of existing liquid sloshing.

128-136

Authors: Xinchao GAO, Jianmin DU, Yuge BI, Weiqiang PI, Xiangbing ZHU, Yanbin ZHANG

In hyperspectral remote sensing images, desert steppe vegetation, bare soil, and rat holes appear as micro-patches. The spectral feature analysis of micro-patches is the basis for identification and classification and also the basis for quantitative remote sensing monitoring of ground objects. Inner Mongolia desert steppe micro-patch as the research object extracts the spectral reflectance of different micro-patches, performs various vegetation index calculations, quantitatively analyzes the spectral characteristics of different micro-patches, and proposes a micro-patch spectral analysis method. Classification of high-resolution hyperspectral images of desert steppe surface micropatches. The results show that: (1) There are pronounced differences in the spectral reflectance of the three types of surface micro-patches. The vegetation has apparent characteristics in the green wave reflection peak and the red wave absorption valley. The spectral reflectance of the bare soil is higher than that of the mouse hole, and the two have been increasing. The trend is increasing slowly; (2) The proposal and application of the MSA index can effectively realize the identification and classification of surface micropatches, and the Kappa coefficient has reached 0.906 through confusion matrix verification. The above spectral analysis method realizes the classification and identification of complex ground objects using near-ground remote sensing images. It provides new ideas and methods for accurate quantitative statistics of desert grassland ecological information.

147-154

Authors: Eugen MARIN, Gabriel-Valentin GHEORGHE, Carmen BĂLȚATU, Marinela MATEESCU

The paper presents the design process of a Venturi injector, by checking and choosing a type of material with physical-mechanical properties necessary to obtain the best possible results during the work process. The injector is part of the solution recovery system from the vineyard spraying machine and was made with the FDM manufacturing technology by selectively depositing of molten material in a predetermined path, layer by layer. Materials used were ABSpro™, MagicFil™ Thermo PLA and Onyx. The presented results allow useful recommendations for the making of other components of agricultural machines using 3D modeling and printing technology.

166-175

Authors: Juyong ZHANG, Minquan ZHOU, Kai HE, Minkang GUO, Guohao LI, Rong LI

Aiming at the difficult problem of contact sampling of plant in complex geographical environment, a remote-controlled sampling method using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is proposed. After configuration, mechanism parameter analysis & optimization, and dynamic analysis, a special lightweight sampling manipulator that integrates plant stem-and-leaf sample capture, cutting and storage is designed. The designed sampling manipulator is composed of a ball screw nut transmission pair and a symmetrical double-offset slider rocker. The minimum transmission angle of the rocker is 63.435°, the maximum opening displacement of the manipulator claw is 131 mm, and the cutting pressure is 226 N. Tests and experiments show that the sample manipulator has a mass of 2.35 kg, a cutting pressure of 214 N, and a maximum open displacement of the manipulator claws of 126 mm. It can be controlled locally or remotely using a UAV to grab, cut and storage plant samples with a diameter greater than 5 mm. The reliability of the sampling manipulator design and the feasibility of the sampling method are verified.

182-190

Authors: Yanhong LIU, Hua YANG, Xindong GUO, Yanwen LI, Zhiwei HU, Yiming HOU, Hongxia SONG

Early diagnosis and accurate identification of fine-grained tomato diseases can control the spread of diseases and insect infections, thus ensuring the healthy development of the tomato industry. In this paper, four lightweight models of Tiny-AlexNet and Mid-AlexNet based on AlexNet and Tiny-VGG16 and Mid-VGG16 based on VGG16 were proposed for 5 kinds of early and late leaf diseases such as tomato powdery mildew. The computation speed of the model is accelerated by reducing the number of neurons in the fully connected layer. In order to avoid degradation in network training, data extension technology is introduced to prevent model overfitting. Among them, the Mid-VGG16 model is significantly better than accurate in early disease recognition, thus verifying the effectiveness of the lightweight model. The proposed model not only improves the accuracy, but also reduces the test time. The results were tested across 20 655 data sets on early and advanced disease. Compared with the traditional model, the average prediction accuracy of the proposed model is improved by about 0.15%, and the detection time is significantly reduced by about 50%. The improved model has strong robustness and high stability. The model can be used to accurately identify early diseases and facilitate real-time detection and prevention of tomato diseases.

201-210

Authors: Victor AULIN, Andrej PANKOV, Grigorij NECHAEV, Helen BIBIK, Vasiliy ERMAK, Alexey KUKHAREV, Dmitriy OSTAPUSHCHENKO, Oleg VORONOV

Current experimental and theoretical methods of research of jet elements used in agricultural means of mechanization are considered in the article. The work processes and aerodynamic flows in power jet elements have been researched on the basis of simulation modeling in ANSYS Fluent software environment. Elements for application in seeding systems of sowing machines were developed as a result of modeling. Dimensional, power characteristics and operation modes were optimized in the developed elements. Application of new jet elements produced as a result of modeling provides improvement of technical and economic characteristics of seeding systems and sowing machines.

221-232

Authors: Krasimir TRENDAFILOV, Galin TIHANOV

Analytical relations for determining the headland width when making T-turns by a machine-tractor unit with a mounted machine on an irregularly-shaped field have been specified. Five types of T-turns are described in two variants – open turn and closed turn. Each of these is done in two directions of movement. A total of 20 variants of the turns are described. The method for determining the headland width of a specific machine-tractor unit consisting by a tractor and mounted row seeder is demonstrated. For each type of turn the headland width is determined according to the angle between the direction of movement of the agricultural unit and the field border. A range of angle modification from 10° to 90° is adopted. The analysis show that for obtaining minimum headland width closed turns in left to right direction of movement should not be made. The smallest theoretical headland width is when making a closed T-turn with arch-shaped backward movement and left-to-right direction of movement on the field. When using T-turns with an arch-shaped backward movement and T-turns with straight ahead movement when entering the headland, the actual headland width is the same (6 m) regardless of the type and direction of the turn.

243-250

Authors: Daniel LYUBENOV, Zhivko KOLEV, Seher KADIROVA, Georgi KADIKYANOV

The paper presents investigation of the temperature and heating velocity during rebuilding (reconditioning) of worn-out agricultural machinery parts by automatic electric arc weld deposition. The temperature has been measured in a control section located at exact distance from the deposited coatings in order to study heating in areas of the parts which don’t need to be treated. The obtained graphical results for the specified parameters are used to select an appropriate scheme for the implementation of the process, from the point of view of reducing the thermal influence on the rebuilt machine parts.

259-268

Authors: Tiejun WANG, Yan YU, Qingchen TANG, Hongguang CUI

The measurement and control system of Eriocheir sinensis, the Chinese mitten crab, could increase its survival rate and quality effectively. Based on the analysis and design of the system, the parameter ranges for major factors of water quality during crab breeding process were determined. Sensors of pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), and temperature were used to detect the value of pH, DO, and temperature. LabVIEW, a virtual instrument technology, was used to monitor water quality parameters during crab breeding process, thereby controlling the relay of inlet valve, water valve and oxygen valve by comparing the actual figures with normal parameter. This technology was used to perform the adjustment of water quality parameters respectively to achieve automatic control. In order to test the performance of the system, the monitoring time, stocking density and planting density were taken as experiment factors, and the error rate of the monitoring index was taken as evaluation index. The verification experiment results show that pH, DO and temperature monitoring errors were less than 10%, under the maximum constraint conditions of experiment factors, which meet the design requirements.

278-284

Authors: Ionel-Lucian DUMITRESCU, Daniela VERINGA, Mihai Gabriel MATACHE, Laurentiu Constantin VLADUTOIU

As in the case of humans, in the case of plants grown in protected areas, specific microclimate conditions must be ensured for their optimal development during the growing season. The development of plants is the result of their own genetic characteristics, but this is influenced by the microclimate conditions in the environment in which they grow. In the growing areas, the specific microclimate conditions must be strictly monitored. On the other hand, in the context of climate change and urbanization, there has been a need to develop specialized modules for vegetable production. Growing vegetables on urban farms is an increasingly used concept internationally. In this sense, a team of researchers from the INMA and HORTING Institutes in Bucharest - Romania has developed a collaborative project, which aims to investigate the main microclimate parameters such as temperature, relative humidity, CO2 concentration and light radiation intensity inside a prototype urban farm for research, in which green vegetables and microplants can be grown. Due to the complexity of the phenomena that take place in the closed spaces of culture, the amount of information necessary for the complete quantification of the variables of microclimate factors depends both on the intensity of the thermo-physical processes and on the accuracy of the measuring instruments used. This paper presents the preliminary results of the investigation of the main microclimate parameters within the experimental module. This module is a good laboratory tool that could be used in a series of research on the influence of light radiation on certain characteristics of microplants or vegetable seedlings. Analyzing the influence of the light radiation that reaches the plants, it can be seen that they have a great influence on the way they grow.

293-305

Authors: Qi LU, Decong ZHENG, Lihong LI, Yun LIU

In order to comprehensively evaluate the best pressure and sowing depth conditions suitable for oat growth under dry farming, a sowing pressure experimental device was designed. The calculation methods of pressure strength of different types of press wheels were analyzed. The experiment calibrated the corresponding counterweight under different suppression strengths. A three-factor and three-level orthogonal experiment was carried out with pressure strength, sowing depth and press wheel type as factors and oat emergence rate, dry matter accumulation at seedling stage and yield as main evaluation indexes. The results showed that the press wheel type had extremely significant effects on oat emergence rate, stem and leaf dry matter quality, total dry matter quality at seedling stage and yield, and had significant effects on root dry matter at seedling stage. The pressure strength had significant effects on the emergence rate and root dry matter quality of oat at seedling stage, and had extremely significant effects on stem and leaf dry matter quality, total dry matter quality at seedling stage and yield. Sowing depth had significant effects on seedling emergence rate, root dry matter quality, stem and leaf dry matter quality, total dry matter quality, and had extremely significant effects on yield. The optimum sowing conditions of oat are as follows: pressure strength is 50 kPa, sowing depth is 5 cm, and press wheel type is conical combined wheel. The results of this study could provide certain references for the design of oat high-yield mechanical sowing technology, oat seeder and press device.

314-322

Authors: Peng ZHANG, Hu ZHANG, Jinming LI, Chunlin TAN, Jiaxi ZHANG

The lack of accurate simulation model parameters of cotton straw in the conveying process causes large differences between simulation effects and actual operation, which to a certain extent limits the development of conveying devices. In this paper, Xinjiang cotton straw was used as the test material. The angle of repose of cotton straw was measured by the cylinder lifting method. The Hertz-Mindlin no-slip model was applied to simulate the angle of repose of cotton straw. Using Box-Behnken optimization research and development of key components such as the cotton straw preparation test, the regression equation of cotton straw was obtained, and the variance and interaction effect of the regression model analysis. The regression model was used to find the optimal solution in Design-Expert software with the angle of repose of 28.62º, the collision recovery coefficient between cotton straws was 0.5, the static friction factor was 0.41, and the rolling friction factor was 0.06, and the collision recovery coefficient between cotton straw and steel was 0.5, the static friction factor was 0.37, and the rolling friction factor was 0.08, with an angle of repose error of 1.04%. It shows that the contact parameters are highly reliable and can be used to propose a theoretical reference for the development of cotton straw conveying device in Xinjiang region.

331-340

Authors: Serhii STEPANENKO, Mykhailo ANELIAK, Alvian KUZMYCH, Serhii KUSTOV, Viktor LYSANIUK

The relevance of research is conditioned upon the need to improve the efficiency of plot combines for harvesting sunflower seed crops. Experimental studies were carried out by planning and staging multifactorial experiments. The dependence of the force factors influence on the seed shedding from a sunflower basket was obtained based on the laboratory studies results. This dependence makes it possible to evaluate the influence of the parameters of the harvester header on the value of seed losses from shedding. The study made it possible to substantiate the design of the header attachment of the plot combine, consisting of a three-blade reel, box-type dividers and side shields. An experimental sample of the header attachment to the “Sampo-500” grain harvester has been developed and manufactured. Experimental studies of the influence of the speed of the combine movement and the coefficient of the operation kinematic mode of the reel to the developed device on the quality indicators of the harvesting of sunflower crops seeds were carried out.

353-363

Authors: Qichao LI, Jinlong FENG, Wei JIANG

The capability of existing precision seeding for soybean narrow row seeder is limited, to address these limitations; we designed a seed metering device. In this study, the structure and working principle of a precision seed metering device was analyzed, and the structural parameters of the seed counterbore seeding wheel for the seed metering device was designed and optimized. Field tests were carried out with the working speed, forward speed, and inclined angle as test factors, and the seeding qualified index and variation coefficient of uniformity as test indexes. The results showed that: the influence order of the factors affecting on the seeding qualified index, from high to low, was found to the working speed, inclined angle and forward speed. For the variation coefficient of uniformity, the influence order, from high to low, was as follows: the working speed, forward speed and inclined angle. Based on the optimization analysis performed using the Design Expert 8.0.6, it is concluded that when the working speed, forward speed, and inclined angle are 36.50 r/min, 1.47 m/s, and 4.11°, respectively, the seeding performance was optimal. The seeding qualified index and variation coefficient of uniformity were 90.37% and 12.87%, respectively, to reach the national seeding standard grade. This study provides a research basis and technical reference for the design and development of precision seed devices.

374-383

Authors: Florin NENCIU, Iulian VOICEA, Vasilica STEFAN, Gabriel NAE, Mihai MATACHE, Gabriela MILIAN, Vlad-Nicolae ARSENOAIA

Due to the recent rise in the price of energy and grains, purchasing high-quality pelletized food has caused significant challenges for small and medium-sized fishing farms. The present article aims to assist breeders and farmers with limited financial resources in producing high quality feeder by providing in detail the design and performance of a wet pelletizing equipment. The proposed pelletizing technology demonstrated high efficiency in use, reduced operating expenses, and a high productivity. Four different feed mixes were processed with the pelleting equipment, functioning with a 5 mm die. The experiment results indicated a maximum processing rate of 100 kg/h at an average pelletizing efficiency of 91.5%. The total pelletizing capacity of 0.8 - 1 tons per day is sufficient to provide feed for a medium-sized fishing farm, reducing dependence on the feed market and allowing for a simple nutritional mix customization.

394-405

Authors: Kaikang CHEN, Yanwei YUAN, Bo ZHAO, Liming ZHOU, Kang NIU, Xin DONG, Xin JIN, Yongjun ZHENG

Aiming at the problem that the existing planters cannot accurately maintain the seeding spacing and row spacing in the field, the high-speed photography technology is used to analyze the seeding trajectory, so as to determine the key factors affecting the seeding position. First, a dynamic compensation system for maize seeding position based on fuzzy PID control was designed. In the dynamic compensation system, the biaxial angle sensor was used to detect the angle of seeding monomer, and the space rotation theory was used to calculate the offset of the seeding position. Then, the dynamic compensation of seeding position was completed by the fuzzy PID control servo electric push rod, and the response time of fuzzy PID control system was 0.035 s. When the seed spacing of maize was 30 cm, the conveyor speed was 1.67 m/s and the seed tray speed was 30 r/min. Finally, the bench test was carried out under the conditions of random disturbance signal, sinusoidal wave disturbance signal and random disturbance signal plus sinusoidal wave disturbance signal. The results showed that compared without dynamic compensation, the variation coefficient of the longitudinal grain spacing and the transverse grain spacing decreased by an average of 6.94 % and 9.16 %, respectively. In this way, this study can provide a reference for improving the stability of seeding row spacing and plant spacing.

412-424

Authors: Adriana MUSCALU, Cătălina TUDORA, Cristian SORICĂ, Oana MÎRZAN, Margareta NAIE, Elena BARCANU-TUDOR

The quality of plant material obtained from cultivated medicinal and aromatic plants depends on several important factors, including harvesting, which must be carried out according to the requirements of each cultivation technology. Current producers, especially those who grow these species on small and medium-sized areas, face the high price of labour or its acute shortage, as well as limited access to specialized equipment. The paper provides a brief summary of current concerns about mechanised harvesting of inflorescences of medicinal species cultivated on a small-scale, with mechanisation generally being a guarantee of economic efficiency and quality.

433-444

Authors: Jiawei WANG, Xiaoguo WANG, Xiaohong YU, Decong ZHENG, Zhiwei LI, Haiyan SONG

Aiming at the problems of high moisture content of stems during buckwheat harvesting and easy clogging of grid concave plates, a telescopic rod tooth-ribbed rod roller type threshing device was designed. The device is mainly composed of a ribbed rod roller and telescopic rod teeth. When the ribbed rod roller type rotates, the telescopic rod teeth do reciprocating telescopic motion. When the rod teeth rotate to the minimum threshing gap, the outstretch length is the smallest. When the rod teeth rotate to the top, the outstretch length maximum. The device solves the problems of poor material flow between threshing devices and clogging of grid concave plates. This threshing device was attached to the threshing performance test bench, and the buckwheat threshing test was performed. Through the single factor test, the threshing parameter range under the condition of low loss rate and damage rate of the threshing device was obtained: the speed of the threshing roller is 350~450 r/min, the feeding amount is 0.8~1.2 kg/s, and the threshing gap is 9~11 mm. Through the quadratic orthogonal rotation combination test, the results were fitted by multiple linear regression, and the regression equations of the loss rate and the broken rate were obtained, and the significance test was carried out. The response surface analysis of the main influencing factors was carried out to explore the influence of threshing parameters on the loss rate and damage rate. Through parameter optimization, the threshing parameter combination with the lowest loss rate and damage rate of the threshing device was obtained. The speed of the threshing roller is 405.47 r/min, the feed amount is 1.06 kg/s, and the threshing gap is 10.49 mm. Under these conditions, the loss rate is 0.05%, and the damage rate is 4.05%. The overall performance of the threshing device is good, which provides a theoretical basis for the research and development of buckwheat mechanized harvesting equipment.

456-464

Authors: Valentin IORDACHE, Petru CARDEI, Ion SARACIN

The article presents results obtained in the experimental research of agricultural aggregates intended for soil processing, with special reference to rotary harrows with vertical axis rotor. The authors approach the description of the working process of these machines from a systemic point of view. The general systemic picture is suitable for researching the work processes of many machines and work processes in agriculture and generally in technology, science and technology. Specifically, this approach applies to the aggregate consisting of tractor and rotary agricultural harrow. The efficiency of the results consists in their use in the prediction and optimization of the working process.

487-496

Authors: Qi LU, Decong ZHENG, Fangjian LIU, Yun LIU

In view of the low level of mechanized sowing and harvesting technology of buckwheat, the operation quality of mechanized production equipment needs to be improved, which can not adapt to the production practice of the rapid development of buckwheat industry at this stage in China. This paper summarized the scale of buckwheat production in the world in recent years. The main planting provinces and yields of buckwheat in China were analyzed. The problems of mechanized sowing and harvesting of buckwheat in China were analyzed. The typical machines used in production at present and their characteristics were described. It is pointed out that the future research on Buckwheat seeding technology and equipment should focus on precision seeding technology, trencher anti-blocking technology, key technology of community seeding, intelligent monitoring system. At the same time, it also pointed out that the mechanized harvesting technology and equipment of buckwheat should focus on the research of agricultural machinery and agronomy integration technology, hilly and mountainous harvesting technology, community harvesting technology, harvesting operation technical specifications and quality standards. The summary of mechanized seeding and harvesting technology of buckwheat at the present stage is expected to provide reference for the development of China's buckwheat industry.

509-524

Authors: Jin CHEN, Yuqian YAN, Xuedong ZHANG, Rui LIU

In order to better detect the working parameters of the seed metering device and further improve the performance of the seed metering device, a set of test-bed control system of seed metering device based on fuzzy PID was designed. The PID parameters are mainly used for on-line fuzzy self-tuning to realize the dynamic adjustment of the speed of the seed metering shaft, so as to ensure the fast adjustment of the speed of the seed metering device. Through the simulation of conventional PID control and fuzzy PID control by matlab, the response curve of the control system is obtained. From the response curve, it can be seen that the step response time of fuzzy PID control is about 0.15s, which is much higher than that of conventional PID control, and the work is stable and there is no overshoot. The bench test is carried out in the laboratory and the fuzzy PID control system is applied to the test-bed, and the actual speed regulation effect of the motor and the performance indexes of the seed metering device test-bed are obtained. The bench test shows that when the fuzzy control system is used to carry out the seed metering device test on the test bench, the qualified grain distance index of the seed metering device is maintained above 91%, the coefficient of variation of the qualified grain distance is less than 4%, the missing sowing index is less than 7%, and the replay index is less than 5%. All meet the national standard requirements of single-grain precision seed metering device.

533-542

Authors: Ensi CHENG, Ping SONG, Boxiao WANG, Tiangang HOU, Liyan WU, Benhua ZHANG

Physiological index data and low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) spectral data of rice seed samples from three varieties harvested in different years were collected through a combination of the standard germination test and an LF-NMR test. Three parameters of seed vigor: germination energy, germination percentage, and germination index, were calculated based on the physiological index data of the rice seed samples to determine their vigor over the years after harvest. LF-NMR Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) sequence echo-peak data were used as the input, and rice seed vigor was used as the output to establish discriminative models using principal component analysis, support vector machine, logistic regression, K-nearest neighbor, artificial neural network, and Fisher’s linear discriminant. The results showed that models constructed using any algorithm, except for principal components analysis-algorithm distinguished between seeds with high and low vigor, while models constructed using Fisher’s linear discriminant algorithm gave the best results. This study provided a rapid, accurate, and non-destructive method to test rice seed vigor, offering theoretical support and a reference for rice seed-sorting and storage research.

19-30

Authors: Xiaolong HUAN, Decheng WANG, Yong YOU, Wenpeng MA, Lu ZHU, Sibiao LI

In order to better use the discrete element method (DEM) to study the cutting and throwing process of King grass (KG) stalk in mechanical harvesting, the DEM model and contact parameters of KG stalk were studied in this paper. By using the Multi-sphere method, the DEM model of KG stalk was established in EDEM software; Through the impact bounce test and slope sliding test, the stalk-steel coefficient of static friction, stalk-steel coefficient of restitution and stalk-stalk coefficient of restitution were calibrated as 0.372, 0.656 and 0.523, respectively; Based on the stacking test, using the response surface methodology, the optimal values of stalk-stalk coefficient of static friction, stalk-stalk coefficient of rolling friction, stalk-steel coefficient of rolling friction were calibrated as 0.393, 0.072 and 0.144, respectively. The throwing test bench of stalk was designed, and the actual and simulation throwing test were carried out. The relative error of throwing distance in bench test and simulation test under four throwing speeds was 1.15%, 7.76%, 8.88% and 10.46%, respectively. The throwing trajectory curve of the simulation test is consistent with that of the actual test, which verifies the accuracy of the DEM model and contact parameters of KG stalk.

41-48

Authors: Dan CUJBESCU, Iuliana GAGEANU, Cătălin PERSU, Gabriel GHEORGHE

Studies and research carried out on seed meters of precision planters whose operating principle is based on the depression / suction of the air created during the work by the exhauster (vacuum generator) in the vacuum chamber have the role of helping to improve their performance. With the advancement of sowing technology, the emphasis on the ability of seed meters to accurately and consistently distribute seeds in the soil increases. The singularization of the seeds by means of the seed meters and their distance along the channels opened by the coulter is essential to ensure the achievement of the maximum yield of the crop sown on a certain area of land. The paper presents the numerical simulation of the working process for a pneumatic seed meter by means of a mathematical model, analysing the movement of the seeds according to the angle of detachment, the height of detachment of the seed, as well as the speed of the seed in its trajectory towards the channel opened by the coulter.

62-72

Authors: Xiwen ZHANG, Zhanfeng HOU, Chuanzhong XUAN

While studying the coating theory, due to the lack of the support of the rapid identification and detection device for coated red clover seeds, for a long time, we have mainly relied on manual visual inspection to sort qualified coated seeds, only relying on human eyes to identify the cause of low efficiency, high wrong classification rate and high labor intensity. In order to identify the coated red clover seeds quickly and efficiently, a set of intelligent identification and detection system for coated red clover seeds was designed. First of all, by building a machine vision shooting platform to ensure that the light source and other shooting conditions are consistent, the images are transmitted to Vision Assistant 2018 for image processing. Secondly, two image processing algorithms are designed to process qualified coated seeds and damaged coated seeds respectively. Finally, an identification and detection algorithm is proposed, which uses LabVIEW2018 as the host computer to identify the qualified number and the damaged number. Taking red clover seeds as the test object, the test results show that the entire system takes about 1 second to collect and process a single image; the recognition accuracy of qualified coated seeds and damaged coated seeds is above 96% and 85%. The identification and detection system realizes the nondestructive detection of coated seeds, and provides theoretical basis and technical support for the later research on the optimal seed coating process, deepening the theoretical research of the coating machine and improving the degree of automation.

81-90

Authors: Yichuan HE, Can HU, Qiaonan YANG, Xufeng WANG, Xuan ZHENG, Huanjun YANG, Yaming LIU

The farmland in Xinjiang of China is mainly sandy loam soil, on which the crops are subject to flat planting with mulched film. Before planting, the soil should go through deep ploughing in a short operation period, thus there is high demand on the high-speed plow and it is necessary to optimize the plow based on tillage resistivity to improve its working performance. In view of optimal design of the surface of high-speed reversible plow, simulation test was adopted to optimize the resistivity model, then finite element method was used to test the force condition of the plow. At last, the tillage resistivity of the plow after optimization was tested by soil bin test. Test results showed that, at tilling depth of 300 mm, tilling speed of 12 km/hm, and when the plow height was 250 mm with cutting angle of 37° and dozer angle of 84°, the plow achieved the optimal tillage resistivity and the optimal combination was 2.85 N/cm2; at tilling depth of 300 mm, soil moisture content of 17%, and soil compactness of 220 N/cm2, the maximum tensile stress on the surface of the plow was 115.61 MPa and total deformation was 2.869 mm; the maximum flexible strain of the plow was 9.38e-4. Soil bin test showed that, at tilling depth of 300 mm, dozer angle of 84°, the optimized high-speed reversible plow reduced the tillage resistance by 17.9% compared with common high-speed reversible plow made in China, and can provide reference to the design of high-horsepower tractors.

101-110

Authors: Xin DU, Cailing LIU, Meng JIANG, Hao YUAN, Lei DAI, Fanglin LI, Zhanpeng GAO

To simulate the interactions between the coated fertilizer particles and the fertilizer discharging components accurately, the coated fertilizer contact parameters were calibrated using the discrete element method (DEM). Based on the angle of repose test, single-factor simulations were performed on the coefficient of restitution (COR), coefficient of static friction (COSF) and coefficient of rolling friction (CORF) between particles, and the internal relationship between the level change of each factor and the static angle of repose (SAOR) was determined. The CCD test was used to calibrate the contact parameters between particles. When the COR, COSF and CORF between particles are 0.625, 0.175, and 0.037, respectively, the simulation value of SAOR is 24.173°, and the relative error from the real value is 1.230%, which indicates that the calibrated fertilizer particle contact parameters are accurate and reliable.

121-127

Authors: I. BESPALOV, V. YAROSHEVSKY, V. BULGAKOV, S. IVANOVS

The peculiarities of microbial plant protection products from pests and diseases allow the use of thin-walled fermenters in their production, in which there is no sterilisation under high pressure. The article is devoted to the development of the cleaning in place system for such fermenters. Experimental studies have been carried out to ensure a pasteurising effect when treating the fermenter with heated sterile water and a nutrient medium concentrate obtained from the sterilizer. Its parameters: its volume, temperature, the time delay have been determined. There is proposed a hardware diagram of the fermentation plant, consisting of an industrial steriliser and a thin-walled fermenter. The cleaning procedure is combined with the main technological process and does not require additional equipment. The production tests have confirmed the cleaning efficiency.

139-149

Authors: Tianci HUANG, Bei WU, Lucen LI, Tianlin ZUO, Fangping XIE

Reducing potato tuber injury rate is responsible for optimal design of potato harvester , one of the most important goals.To assess the influence of various factors on potato tubers impact damage，the physical model of potato tuber collision was constructed in terms of the deformation and deformation energy analysis during the collision. Secondly, the orthogonal trial was conducted.the impact material, potato varieties,potential energy,impact angle were selected as factors,meanwhile,the comprehensive damage index(DI) was taken as the evaluation index.The results showed that the damage degree of potato tuber decreases with the reduction of impact material hardness, potential energy, and collision angle.When the impact material is a plank, the potential energy is 1.2j, the type of potato is Lishu 6, and the collision angle is 0 °，the comprehensive damage index is the lowest, 0.0055.According to the result of orthogonal test, the regression mathematical model was obtained.At the same time,verification tests were performed.The results of verification tests showed that the average error between the predicted data of the comprehensive damage index that was calculated by the regression mathematical model and the experimental data was 5.22%.

159-166

Authors: Pharunee SARMPHIM, Narongsak SUTTHIPHON, Parimate JAROENSONG, Chitnarong SIRISATHITKUL, Yaowarat SIRISATHITKUL

The Internet of Things (IoT) based system was assembled to monitor the moisture of soils for both indoor and outdoor uses. The SKU:SEN0193 capacitive soil moisture sensor exhibited a linear response to a variation in water volume added to the soil. Microcontroller Arduino NodeMCU was used with ESP8266 Wi-Fi module to transfer the sensing data in real-time and the soil moisture data was displayed by the Blynk application on a smartphone. When the moisture dropped under the pre-defined threshold, the user was informed via the Line application and able to remotely trigger the irrigation pump.

182-190

Authors: Zhicai SONG, Peisong DIAO, Huanxio PANG, Dianbao ZHAO, Hequan MIAO, Xiaowei LI, Duozhen YANG

In order to find out the influence rule of threshing system parameters on threshing effect and the optimal parameter combination, the cylinder-concave clearance adjustment device is realized by "Front and back two hydraulic cylinders + Slide rail", the deflector angle adjustment device is realized by "Hydraulic cylinder driving hinge rotation" and the threshing separation device inclination angle adjustment device is realized by "Front adjustable double head pull rod". Multi-objective optimization test was carried out. The experimental results showed that the significant order of the influence of various factors on the grain breakage rate was rotational speed of roller, threshing separation device inclination angle, feeding rate, deflector angle and cylinder-concave clearance. The order of significance of the influence on uncleaned material rate was rotational speed of roller, cylinder-concave clearance, deflector angle, threshing device angle and feeding rate. According to the multi-objective parameter optimization analysis, the optimal operation parameter combination of corn threshing was determined. Under this parameter combination condition, model verification test and field optimization test were carried out. Compared with the field test value after parameter optimization, the grain breakage rate decreased from 4.018% to 3.462%, and the uncleaned material rate decreased from 0.292% to 0.218%.

201-210

Authors: Zenghui GAO, Shuqi SHANG, Nan XU, Dongwei WANG

At present, there is a lack of accurate discrete element simulation model and parameters in the optimization research and development of key components such as soil contact of seedbed preparation equipment in Huang Huai Hai double cropping production area, which hinders the optimization and improvement of equipment operation effect. In this paper, the discrete element method is used to study the interaction between soil-touching components and wheat straw-soil mixture to improve the performance of equipment. Firstly, the Hertz-Mindlin with JKR Cohesion contact model is selected for the wheat straw-soil mixture to calibrate the parameters. Then, the method of combining physical test and simulation test is used to calibrate the parameters, the cylinder lifting method is used to determine the buildup angle of wheat straw soil mixture, and the Plackett-Burman screening method and the steepest climbing test are used to determine the optimal combination range of soil-straw static friction coefficient, soil-straw dynamic friction coefficient and soil-soil dynamic friction coefficient contact model parameters. Using Box-Behnken test, the regression equation of the stacking angle of wheat straw soil mixture was obtained, and the variance and interaction effect of the regression model were analysed. The regression model was used to find the optimal solution in Design-Expert software with an angle of repose of 41.23°, which yielded a soil-straw static friction factor of 0.072, a soil-straw dynamic friction factor of 0.78, and a soil-soil dynamic friction factor of 0.068, with an angle of repose error of 1.43%, indicating that the contact model parameters are reliable, and the parameters can provide a reference and theoretical basis for the study of the key components of the seedbed preparation equipment such as touching soil in the Yellow and Huaihai Sea two-maturity zone.

219-228

Authors: Yajun ZHUANG, Jie HAN, Zeqi LIU, Meng ZHANG, Zheng ZHANG, Yubin LAN, Yulong CHEN

In this paper,the vertical disk mechanical seed-metering device is taken as the object to optimize the design of seed holding ring. The laboratory test is carried out with seed-metering test bench and high-speed camera system; and the influence law of starting and ending angle, front inclination angle and flexible buffer of seed holding ring on the seed filling performance is studied. The ending angle of seed holding ring shall be consistent with seed throwing angle of seed-metering device, and the starting angle of seed holding ring has a significant effect on seed filling performance. The quality of fill index will first increase and then decrease, reaching the maximum at 35.7°; while miss fill index will first decrease and then increase, and the multiple fill index will be 0% when the starting angle is greater than 50°; and seed damage index will first decrease and then increase. In order to improve seed filling performance, the front end of seed holding ring is treated with inner chamfering. The larger the angle is, the lower the quality of fill index, the higher the multiple fill index and the lower the miss fill index, but the seed damage index will also increase. By setting a flexible buffer in the front end of seed holding ring, the seed damage index can be effectively reduced. When the buffer is 60mm, the seed can be cleaned smoothingly, and the seed damage index will be 0%.

239-246

Authors: Jixia ZHEN, Wei CHEN, Hongwei GAO

Buckwheat huller is the key equipment of the buckwheat rice processing and its performance is directly related to the quality and yield of buckwheat rice. The key working parts of the sand disc sheller are a pair of parallel sand discs. The structure and the working parameters of the sand discs are the key factors affecting the shelling performance. In this paper, the effect of rotating speed of sand disc, shelling clearance, grain size of sand disc and width of the working face on the shelling performance are experimentally investigated. The results show that the rice yield and relative broken rice rate increase with the increase of the rotating speed of the lower sand disc, and the relative broken rice rate increases sharply when the speed reaches a certain value. With the linear increase of the shelling clearance, the rice yield and the relative broken rice rate are first decreased rapidly, and then decrease slowly. The smaller the particle size of the sand disc is, the higher the rice yield and the relative broken rice rate are, and the influence of the lower sand disc is obviously greater than that of the upper one. Properly widening the width of working face will increase the rice yield but the width tends to have little influence on the rice yield when it increases to a certain extent, and its change has a small impact on the relative broken rice rate. According to the results of single factor test and orthogonal test, the sheller can achieve a better shelling performance and work efficiency when the grain size of the upper sand disc is F24, the grain size of the lower sand disc is F36, the shelling clearance is 5 mm, the rotating speed of the sand disc is 950 r/min, and the width of the working face is 2 cm

257-266

Authors: Valery GOROBETS, Viktor TROKHANIAK, Mykola MASIUK, Nadiia SPODYNIUK, Oksana SHEREMETYNSKA, Olena SHELIMANOVA

An experimental study of the wind flow concentrator of a new design using the wind tunnel of subsonic speeds was carried out. Experimental studies in the wind tunnel were performed at an air flow velocity of 1 m/s. The fields of velocity and pressure distribution in the areas in front of the wind flow concentrator and in its central part are obtained. Based on the obtained data in the Mathcad, contour graphs are constructed, which show the distribution of wind flow velocities and pressures in the investigated part of the wind flow concentrator. As a result, it was obtained that in the area of the wind turbine blades there is an increase in the velocity of air masses by 4 times compared to the air velocity at the entrance to the wind flow concentrator. The proposed design of the wind flow concentrator makes it possible to increase the efficiency of the wind turbine and receive electric energy at low wind speeds, when the bladed wind turbines do not generate electricity. Verification of experimental data with data of numerical modeling of hydrodynamics in the wind flow concentrator is carried out. The evaluation of the use of wind flow concentrator to increase the efficiency of wind turbines with a vertical axis of rotation is carried out.

279-288

Authors: Qiang SU, Xuying LI, Fandi ZENG, Junyue WANG, Yongzhi ZHANG, Hongbin BAI, Lei WU, Jie WANG

The vibration of the hanging cup transplanter affected the hole size and tray seedling quality. This paper takes the 2ZP-2 hanging cup transplanter as the research object, studies the vibration characteristics of the transplanter when it works, deduces the mathematical model of the transplanter-soil vibration characteristics, and solves the steady-state vibration response. The Danish B&K vibration test system carried out the vibration test. Studies have shown that the vertical vibration of the transplanter is greater than that of the lateral vibration and the forward vibration. The main factors affecting the vertical vibration of the transplanter are the forward speed of the transplanter, the soil compaction, and the planting depth. When the forward momentum of the transplanter is in the range of 0.8~2.4 km/h, the vertical vibration acceleration increases with increasing forward speed of the transplanter. According to the power, spectral density curve, and spectral curve, the spectrum range of the vertical vibration energy peak is 0~10 Hz, the vibration frequency is between 4.5~5.5 Hz, and the corresponding vibration acceleration amplitude is 0.03~0.33 m/s2. The research results can provide a reference for improving the operating speed, comfort, and structural optimization.

301-310

Authors: Xiaohu CHEN, Xiaorong LÜ, Xiao WANG, Xinye TU, Xiaolian LÜ

In order to improve the automation level of the leveling system of crawler tractor, the adaptive leveling control system is designed and studied for the developed leveling device. The overall scheme of the leveling control system is determined. The system hardware is designed and selected, and the control algorithm of the leveling control system is designed by using the proportional algorithm. The designed leveling control system is composed of real-time detection part, control part, driving part and display part. The system can detect and control the tractor inclination angle in real time, and monitor inclination angle and leveling time in real time. The results of the leveling control system performance test are shown: the leveling accuracy and time of lateral slope and longitudinal slope increase with the increase of tractor body inclination angle; The leveling accuracy and stability of longitudinal slope are better than that of lateral slope leveling, and the leveling speed is higher than that of lateral slope leveling; The coordination leveling accuracy is higher than the independent leveling accuracy of lateral slope and longitudinal slope, and the collaborative leveling accuracy of longitudinal slope is obviously better than its independent leveling accuracy; The leveling control system can independently complete the leveling work according to the actual working conditions of the crawler tractor, and the leveling accuracy can reach within 1°, the leveling time is within 0-6s; The leveling accuracy and time can meet the design requirements.

321-330

Authors: Fan ZHAO, Jiawei ZHANG, Na ZHANG, Zhiqiang TAN, Yonghao XIE, Song ZHANG, Zhe HAN, Mingbao LI

Cucurbitaceae is widely planted and its fruits have great economic value. Object detection is one of the key aspects of cucurbit harvesting. In this paper, four models, YOLOv3, YOLOv4, YOLOv5s and improved Resnet_YOLO, were used to detect mixed bitter melon, cucumber, white melon, and "Boyang 9" melon fruits. Fruit images of bitter melon, cucumber, white melon and "Boyang 9" melon were collected under different natural conditions for model training. The results showed that "Boyang 9" melon had the best overall detection results among the four cucurbit species, with the highest AP and F1, 0.99 and 0.94 respectively. The YOLOv5s model performed best among the four models: the best weights size was the smallest at 14MB; the better mAP value of 0.971 for all classes of cucurbits; and the fastest detection speed with fps of 90.9 . This paper shows that four types of cucurbit fruit images, bitter melon, cucumber, white melon, and "Boyang 9" melon, can be detected based on deep learning methods for hybrid detection.

340-350

Authors: Eko Kuncoro PRAMONO, Mirwan Ardiansyah KARIM, Ahmad FUDHOLI, Ramayanty BULAN, Ravipat LAPCHAROENSUK, Agustami SITORUS

This study focusses on the development of a low-cost Internet of Things (IoT) system for semispherical solar dryers to dry arabica coffee beans. The temperatures and relative humidity (Rh) of a solar dryer room are measured using a DHT22 sensor module. The moisture content of hard arabica coffee beans is calculated by measuring the mass of the dried product using the load cell sensor module. All detected data are then sent using wireless networks and saved on a database cloud server. Tests are conducted to evaluate the uniformity of the DHT22 sensor module in a semispherical solar dryer, measure the temperature and Rh and reduce the mass of the dried coffee beans. The performance of the DHT22 sensor module at the uniformity testing stage shows promising results in terms of temperature and Rh, with standard deviations of 0.46 and 3.55, respectively. In addition, the performance of the semispherical solar dryer in relation to the drying kinetics of arabica coffee beans is evaluated. Arabica coffee beans are dried from 49.59% (w.b.) to 10% (w.b.) moisture content within 69 h. In addition, the drying kinetics of coffee arabica beans are investigated. Three models are compared with experimental data on arabica coffee beans dried in a semispherical solar dryer. The Page model is selected to represent the thin layer drying behaviour of arabica coffee beans.

361-372

Authors: Xiongfei CHEN, Xuehai LIANG, Muhua LIU, Jiajia YU, Huilong LI, Zhaopeng LIU

For rice ratooning, the lateral bud germination of the rice stubble after the first harvesting can be used to continue the next growing season, but the first harvesting machinery will crush and damage the rice stubble, resulting in the reduction of yield in the ratooning season. Righting the rolled stubble can reduce this loss, and thus a double-chain finger grain lifter was designed in this study. Then, a kinematic model and motion trajectory curve of the grain lifter was established. The influence law of the chain speed, chain spacing and the number of fingers of the rear righting chain was determined. Furthermore, taking into account the success rate and the rate of secondary damage of the righting, a full-factor bench test was performed. The best operating characteristics of the grain lifter are: chain speed of 345 r/min, adjacent chain spacing of 300 mm, and the number of gears and fingers on the rear righting chain of 3. The success rate and the secondary damage rate of the righting is 90.05% and 1.72%, respectively. A field verification test was conducted, with an average success rate of 55%. The results of this study can provide valuable reference for the righting technology of rolled rice stubble and promote the whole mechanized production of ratoon rice.

383-392

Authors: Xuening ZHANG, Yong YOU, Decheng WANG, Jie LV

To improve the ditching performance of high-firmness grassland, a bionic root cutter based on the contour curve model of Prosopocoilus astacoides' jaw was designed, as well as a grassland root-cutting and ditching device combining the bionic root cutter with the core-share opener. The grassland ditching experiment investigated the horizontal working resistance, ditching stability, and soil disturbance of the three ditching parts. According to the trial results, when the core-share opener was used for ditching in high-firmness grassland, the ditching stability was poor, the working resistance was high, and the grassland was severely damaged. Compared with the independent configuration of the core-share opener, the ditching performance can be significantly improved by installing a root cutter in front of the core-share opener, and the effect of installing the bionic root cutter was better than that of an ordinary triangular root cutter. When the ditching depth was 5cm, 10cm, and 15cm, the ditching stability coefficient of the root-cutting and ditching device increased by 16.67%, 9.54%, and 6.18%, respectively, the horizontal working resistance reduced by 58.73%, 28.15%, and 19.84%, respectively, and the soil disturbance area reduced by 30.58%, 23.73%, and 20.21%, respectively.

403-412

Authors: Claudia IONITA, Elena Eugenia VASILESCU, Lucreția POPA

In the paper we presented a comparative analysis of the effect of the refrigerant used on the operation and performance of a heat pump with water-water and heat regeneration. Various sensitivity studies are presented comparatively for some eco-friendly refrigerants (R290, R600a, R454C, R152a) and R407C. Based on the exergetic analysis, the exergy destruction and loss were estimated for each device, depending on the destination and the operating regime. Graphic and numerical results are presented. In conclusion, a comparative analysis of the defined performance coefficient based on energy and exergetic efficiency is presented. The interest of the study is important due to the applicability of geothermal heat pumps in the field of air conditioning of residential and industrial buildings but also in agriculture for animal farms, for drying some agricultural products in a climate with controlled temperature and relative humidity, in addition the water can be used in summer for irrigation.