Abstract:Deep muddy paddy fields are widely spread in southern hilly regions of China. In these paddy fields, the rice transplanter is often trapped due to the poor soil bearing capacity, resulting in unnecessary interruption of rice transplanting or mechanical failure of the rice transplanter. Aiming to address these issues, a novel rice transplanter equipped with double helix drive was proposed. Firstly, the motion principle the proposed rice transplanter was analyzed and its parametric design model was constructed. Then the relationship between propulsion force and parameters of spiral structure as well as the driving direction was modeled. Finally, a prototype of the transplanter was developed and tested under different conditions. From the results of the experiments, it can be found that the proposed rice transplanter had exceptional stability and superior transplanting performance in deep muddy paddy fields. When the rotating speed of the spiral wheel was 1.33 r/s, the working speed of the rice transplanter was 1.02 m/s. As a result, the slip rate of the rice transplanter reached the maximum value of 3.045%. However, the settlement of the rice transplanter was decreased with the increase of speed of spiral wheel. The maximum settlement was decreased significantly from 148.67 mm to 59.74 mm. Furthermore, in fields with a 430 mm mud depth, the transplanter’s maximum uncontrolled linear deviation was 0.021 m. Based on the presented work, manufacturers can easily develop a rice transplanter for deep muddy paddy fields in southern hilly regions of China, which would be a useful rice transplant equipment to overcome the unnecessary interruption of rice transplanting or mechanical failure of the rice transplanter.
