Abstract
Subsoiling can break the compacted hardpan without turning or mixing soil layers. It has significant advantages in improving soil structure, promoting rainwater infiltration, and increasing air permeability of soil. The soil compacted hardpan will not be completely broken and more power consumption will be generated unless the desired tillage depth is obtained. However, due to uneven surface between and within each row of subsoiling shovel in the field, the existing adjustment methods, adjusting via the lifting device of the whole machine or a group of tillage components, cannot ensure each subsoiling shovel avoiding undesired tillage depth. Therefore, a tillage depth monitoring and control system for the independent adjustment of each subsoiling shovel was developed, and the methods of detecting, adjusting, displaying, and recording tillage depth were described. Field experiments were conducted to evaluate detecting accuracy, stability of tillage depth, transient response time, and advantages. The results showed that the value obtained by sensor differed from manual measurement at the speed of 3 km/h, 4 km/h, and 5 km/h averagely by 8.28%. The mean value of the coefficient of the tillage depth stability at three speeds were all greater than 94%. The mean transient response time was 0.6 s. The standard deviation of tillage depth obtained under system control was 38.31, which was less than the 51.52 obtained by only adjusting on the three-point suspension. The subsoiler equipped with this system was capable of obtaining a desired tillage depth of each subsoiling shovel in every second.
Highlights
As the substrate of root-system development, soil provides nutrients, water, and air needed for the crop growth [1]
We provide a design of the tillage depth monitoring and control system for the subsoiler with subsoiling assemblies to ensure each subsoiling shovel avoiding undesired tillage depth and to improve tillage depth stability of each row
The single subsoiling assembly is composed of a lifting assembly, a supporting frame of the ultrasonic sensor, and a subsoiling shovel, which is capable of independently adjusting the tillage depth of a single row and was selected for this study
Summary
As the substrate of root-system development, soil provides nutrients, water, and air needed for the crop growth [1]. Subsoiling tillage is capable of loosening soil and breaking the compacted hardpan without turning or mixing soil layers, which are able to reduce bulk density and hardness and increase porosity and permeability [10,11,12,13] Thanks to these obtained effects, this technology is beneficial for soil-structure improvement, water storage and conservation, and root elongation into deeper soil [14]. The TruSet monitoring system and AccuDpthTM hydraulic system and the AFS (Advanced Farming System) tillage depth intelligent monitoring system and the supporting hydraulic system have been respectively developed by John Deere and CASE [42,43] These monitoring and control systems are capable of accurately detecting tillage depth and precisely adjusting the tillage depth to the required value. The performance of the tillage depth monitoring and control system was evaluated by the detecting accuracy, stability of tillage depth, transient response time, and advantages
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