Design and evaluation method of testing bench for spray boom suspension systems

Boom suspension is an important device that affects the uniformity of droplet deposition distribution on the sprayers, but the field testing and evaluation of the stability of the suspension system are affected by a number of random factors, such as test topography, soil properties, driving proficiency, etc. Therefore, a set of boom stability indoor test platform was designed, including a 6 degrees of freedom chassis motion simulation platform, terrain relief simulation platform and NI PXI-based synchronous trigger measurement and control system, and a test method for quantitative evaluation of suspension stability was proposed. The 6 degrees of freedom platform was designed based on Stewart parallel mechanism, which had special field excitation spectrum reproducing function and excitation spectrum database for the dynamic simulation of the boom, and it could be used to simulate the motion of the chassis in the field of the sprayer. The control system of terrain undulation simulation test rig adopted an upper-lower structure, took NI PXI control computer as the upper computer. The DSP microcomputer was used as the lower computer to receive the position instructions sent by the upper computer, control the rotation of the servo motor, and realize the simulation of ground undulation through the ball screw. In order to accurately simulate the real field working environment, the motion posture signal of the chassis and the terrain elevation data on both sides of the boom were collected at the sprayer work site. During the sprayer working in the field, a dual GPS aided inertial attitude measurement system was used to collect the motion signal of the sprayer chassis, and 2 ultrasonic sensors were installed on both sides of the boom, then the height data of the ground were measured along the direction of the sprayer. Considering the difference between the installation position of the sensor and the ideal operating height of different spray rods, the original Hockley index had been revised to describe the performance of the spray boom suspension system together with standard deviation and coefficient of variation, which made up for their limitations. A 28 m boom was tested under different working conditions such as no suspension, passive suspension, active suspension (including active roll control system and active boom arm control system) by using the developed test system, the coefficient of variation of multiple sets of repeated test results was less than 5.91%. The HIC index of the boom was 21.60 when using a rigid connection, 68.37 when using passive suspension, and 89.18 of the boom when using active rolling control system, and the HIC index was 92.83 when using active boom arm control system. The results show that the test platform and evaluation index can clearly distinguish the performance of different suspension systems, and have universality for different spray boom. The test platform developed in this study can be considered a potential basis of a standardized protocol for active boom suspension as well as for the definition of performance limits. The research provides important testing and evaluation methods for large booms and balanced suspensions. © 2019, Editorial Department of the Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. All right reserved.