A new approach to optimize the performance of a precision metering unit: Smart vacuum disk

The objective of this study was to optimize the seeding performance of a precision metering unit and test a new approach. The new approach is based upon the use of a smart vacuum disk with holes at different diameters ranging between 0.5 and 8 mm in order to determine the appropriate hole diameter on disk along with other variables (disk peripheral speed and amount of vacuum) considered in the study. Experiments were conducted to meet the above objectives and four different crop seeds and two different spherical materials were used to find out the single seed holding, multiple and miss index values. Experiments considered the five levels of each indepent variable was carried out in the laboratory and Response Surface Methodology principles were applied to optimize two variables namely vacuum disk peripheral speed and amount of vacuum. Some verification tests were conducted on sticky belt test stand by using the results from the experiments and mathematical models developed. The verification tests targeted to find out the answer to if the seed holding ration is the indicator of seed spacing uniformity performance. The results indicated that the smart vacuum disk is capable of finding the appropriate hole diameter and other two variables.