Abstract:The slip ratio of the drive wheels during rice transplanter operations affects the precision of planting spacing and subsequently impacts rice yield. Therefore, a joint speed-slip ratio control method was proposed based on paddy field rolling resistance variation rate identification and fuzzy PI control. Firstly, Kalman filter was used to estimate the variation rate of rolling resistance of the transplanter’s drive wheel, which reflected the fluctuation intensity of the paddy field condition parameters. Subsequently, fuzzy PI control was used for joint speed-slip ratio control, where the fuzzy rules adjusted the control law gain coefficients in real-time based on the rolling resistance variation rate, speed error, and slip ratio error. Field test results indicated that, with a target speed of 1m/s, the proposed controller achieved a mean slip ratio of 0.122 with a variance of 0.039, compared with the case without slip ratio control, the mean slip ratio was decreased by 39.3%, the variance of slip ratio was decreased by 61.7%, and compared with the fixed-control-law-gain-coefficients speed-slip ratio joint controller, the proposed method reduced the mean slip ratio by 12.8%, the variance of the slip ratio by 45.1%;in terms of speed control, when the desired speed was 1m/s, the proposed algorithm resulted in an absolute speed error mean of 0.072m/s, compared with the case without slip ratio control, it represented a 53.5% reduction, and compared with the fixed-control-law-gain-coefficients speed-slip ratio joint controller, it represented a 47.1% reduction. The proposed joint speed-slip ratio control method demonstrated significant improvements in reducing and stabilising the slip ratio of the transplanter’s drive wheels, showing effectiveness and strong robustness.