Design and testing of novel seed miss prevention system for single seed precision metering devices

Precision seed metering devices based on seed singulation principles all suffer from seed miss problems. The majority of researches on single seed metering devices primarily aims to reduce seed misses. This paper focuses on finding the ways and researching the possibility of eliminating seed misses in electrically driven single seed metering devices. A new approach to eliminate seed misses in single seed metering devices based on rotational speed variation of seed metering drum was introduced. The viability of the proposed approach was supported by modeling single and double miss scenarios in MATLAB/Simulink. Modeling results were used to create a novel seed miss prevention system for single seed metering devices. It was further substantiated by conducting a series of laboratory experiments on polyoxymethylene spherical balls with a prescribed seed miss index ranging from 0.1 to 0.2. Tests were made on laboratory testing apparatus built specifically for this purpose. The analysis of experimental results showed no occurring misses at the seed release point when the system was used. From 42 treatments varied by rotation speed, forced misses, and 2 speed increasing modes the maximum deviation in between seed spacing was 1.25 times the theoretical value. The results of the main experiment were supported by conducting a verification experiment on pea seeds with the resulting highest seed miss index equaling 0.001.