Design and Experiment of a Stable Seed Supply Control System for an Elevating Type Sugarcane Seed Supply Device

Aiming at the problems of seed cane pile-up and unstable seed supply efficiency in the sugarcane seed production line caused by the seed supply device, a stable seed supply control system was designed, which consists of a seed collection box, an elastic seed-clearing plate and an electrical control system, etc. The EDEM-RecurDyn coupling simulation was adopted to analyze the seed supply process, and the optimal elastic seed-clearing plate structure was designed. Using the single factor test and Box–Behnken experimental design analyzed the effects of the seed supply belt speed, the speed of the first conveyor belt, the number of sugarcane seeds in the collection box and the seed cutting efficiency on the supply efficiency. Establish a quadratic regression model for the efficiency of seed supply and determine the optimal parameter combination: the seed supply belt speed of 0.097 m/s, first conveyor belt speed of 1.639 m/s, and the number of sugarcane seeds is 14. Using the number of sugarcane seeds as the input quantity for the controller, the real-time data is fed back by the TOF sensor. The controller automatically adjusts the seed-cutting efficiency to maintain the continuity and stability of the seed supply process of the seed supply device. The test results show that after applying this system, the seed supply efficiency reached 1.77 setts/s, which was 6% higher than that of the fixed-parameter system. This research can provide technical support for the stable seed supply of integrated equipment for sugarcane seed production.