Development of a novel mechatronic system for mechanical weed ...

Results and discussion
With the invariable setting of the arm lengths and with an angular adjustment of
the front and rear duckfoot knives in all sections (Figure 5.13), the equal intra-
row area covering can be realised, like with the system without angular
adjustment (Figure 5.12). Another very important aspect of the forward-
backward rearrangement is the relative position of the arm, working in the
close-to-crop area. In the first case with the system without angular adjustment
(Figure 5.12) arms are always perpendicular to the soil surface. In the
rearranged system, arms cultivating the close-to-crop area always have an
obtuse angle in relation to the soil surface, which means that they are shifted
from the plant. That allows cultivation of plants with bigger leaves as well as
cultivation closer to the plant without causing damage on the leaf system
(Figure 5.13).
80
Horizontal position (x) [mm]
Vertical position (y) [mm]
600
400
200
0
-200
-400
100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Travelled distance (z) [mm]
50
0
re3
fr1
fr2
+ mi1 + mi2 +
re1
+ +
-50
100
re3
200
fr1 mi1
300
re1
400
fr2 mi2
500
re2
600
fr3 mi3
700
Travelled distance (z) [mm]
Figure 5.12 Hoeing trajectories of the hoeing tool with nine arms in a
field with 200 mm intra-row distance between plants
(arm length 520 mm, angular position of all arms
adjusted to 0°, � - position of the plant)
re2
+
fr3
mi3