Development and Evaluation of Bluetooth based Remote Controlled Battery Powered Drum Seeder

Abstract

A Bluetooth based battery-powered remote-controlled direct rice seeder was developed to overcome the drudgery and operational difficulties involved in direct seeding by manual drum seeder. The developed seeder consists of micro-controller unit, stepper motor, DC geared motor, motor drivers, battery, wheels and frame. The micro-controller unit is the heart of the developed mechatronic system. The micro-controller unit was designed and developed by Programming. A mobile application was designed and developed to connect the seeder to mobile through Bluetooth connectivity and operated range of 47.6 m which is sufficient for hilly region topography. The developed seeder was evaluated in laboratory conditions at different forward speeds varying from 0.5 to 3.0 km.h−1 and hopper fill levels varying from 25% to 75%. Forward speed of 0.7 km.h−1 and 75% hopper fill level were found optimum with corresponding seed rate of 20.2 kg. ha−1, missing hill index of 0%, hill spacing uniformity of 93.7%, coefficient of variance of number of seeds per hill of 0.25 and hill span of 9.4 cm. The developed seeder was evaluated in the field in puddled soil conditions in Sajong village, East Sikkim, India and the performance was compared with manual drum seeder. The field capacity and field efficiency of the developed seeder was found to be 0.017 ha.h−1 and 62% respectively as compared to 0.023 ha.h−1and 82% in case of manual drum seeder respectively. The developed seeder has reduced drudgery/cumbersome of 64% over manual drum seeder as evident from operator's heart rate and energy expenditure rate. In addition to that the operator can able to sit in a safe and comfortable environment outside the field to operate the developed drum seeder. Moreover, the developed seeder reduces the operational cost of 230 ₹. ha−1 over manual drum seeder.