Design and Experiment of Key Components for Tobacco Pot Seedling Automatic Transplanter

Aiming to enhance automation and transplanting efficiency of tobacco pot seedling transplanting equipment, the overall structure of automatic transplanter was determined by analyzing the phenotype and transplanting process of tobacco seedling. The key components of the transplanter were designed, including the devices of plug tray conveying, automatic seedling picking and dropping, flexible chain seedling transportation, planting, and soil covering mechanism. Joint kinematic and dynamic simulations of key components were conducted based on UG, ADAMS and ANSYS softwares. Orthogonal experiments were designed with planting frequency, stem diameter, and planting-forward speed ratio as experimental factors, the qualified rate of uprightness and the variation coefficient of plant spacing as measurement indicators. The verification experiments were carried out in tobacco field, with the designed key components applied in tobacco pot seedling automatic transplanter. Results showed that under the optimal parameter combination of planting frequency of 85 plants per minute, seedling stem diameter of 4 mm, and planting speed ratio of 1, by using the automatic transplanter with the designed key components, the qualified rate of seedling uprightness, and the plant spacing variation coefficient after transplanting reached 94.42% and 3.25%, respectively. The tobacco pot seedling automatic transplanter can meet the requirements of tobacco seedling transplantation.