Abstract
A pneumatic seed meter equipped with a machine vision system and a mechatronic drive was developed to reduce the incidence of missed seeding during mechanical corn planting. The machine vision system monitored the seed plate and checked if seeds did not attach to the seed plate holes. The rotation speed to the seed plate was adjusted by the mechatronic drive based on the presence and absence of seeds attached to the seed plate holes. The reliability of the mechatronic drive in regulating the seeding rate, and the accuracy of the machine vision system in identifying filled and unfilled seed plate holes were both tested. The combined system of the machine vision system and the mechatronic drive was also tested if it can effectively reduce the incidence of missed seeding in a stationary laboratory rig under simulated speed settings of 2kph, 4kph, and 6kph. It was found out that the drive did not maintain a consistent seed delivery rate, which can be attributed to the limited processing capacity of the microcontroller used to control the drive. The machine vision system was highly accurate as it only committed a 0.2564 % error out of 780 images. The machine vision system of the seed meter, at 2kph and 4kph simulated speed settings, committed significantly, at 95% level of confidence, less missed seeding in the conducted treatments in comparison to the setup where the seed meter was operated without the machine vision system. The treatments wherein the machine vision system was used, however, committed more missed seeding at 6kph simulated speed setting.
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