| In order to obtain precise planting of onion sets, a manual drawn planter with a two degrees of freedom robotic arm was developed. The key idea was to reduce multiple set droppings to single set droppings per hill. The developed three wheeled planter consisted of suitable hopper for onion sets, conveying system, robotic arm, seed tube, furrow opener and closer, and necessary electronics circuits. The rotation of DC motor of the conveyor belt was dependent on the output of LDR circuit. Onions coming to the workspace of the robotic arm, interrupted the laser light from falling over the LDR hence stopped the belt movement. The robotic arm, programmed in Arduino platform, approached, picked, carried, and released the onion sets into seed tube. Furrow opener... |
