Development of a Vegetable Transplanting Robot

Abstract

Purpose: This study was conducted to develop a vegetable transplanting robot which transplants seedlings from a nursery tray to a plant pot using its four fingers. Method: The robot consists of the transplanting part, nursery tray moving part, plant pot moving part, main frame and controller. Two moving parts are controlled by the photo sensor and servo motor. The transplanting part was composed with two components; transporting device using E-MY2H(SMC Corp., Japan) for controlling finger position accurately and finger for transplanting the seedling. Results: Head lettuce using the transplanting robot was transplanted in 21 days after sowing based upon the seed shape measurement and removing examination. The optimal finger shape was thin pin type because it caused minimum damage to the roots of seedlings. Conclusions: The four inclined pin type was applied to remove the seedlings from the nursery tray. In addition, the transplanting capacity of the developed robot was 2800 pots per hour and the rate of success was 99% and above.