Objective Based on the agronomic requirements of garlic planting in Jiangsu Province, this study designs and develops a real-time seeding monitoring system for a four-row garlic planter, which integrates a variety of sensor technologies. The study aims to realize real-time monitoring of the garlic sowing process, and provide a decision-making basis for the subsequent mechanical or manual replanting.

Method Based on a 4DS-4 four-row planter, the design and selection of the monitoring system were determined according to the actual requirements. The system included the planter operating speed monitoring module, seeding monitoring module, display module, alarm module and data storage module, etc. The monitoring system was designed with the STM32F103 microcontroller as the main controller, and a variety of sensor technologies were used to design the monitoring principle of speed and seeding. The system monitoring program was written to collect the operation information of the garlic seeder based on the working speed of the seeder and the principle of missed seed monitoring. Finally, the bench test was performed for the monitoring system to complete the commissioning of the monitoring system, and the soil trench test was conducted for further test and validation of the stability and accuracy of the seeding monitoring system in the actual working condition.

Result The bench test showed that when the seeding speed of the planter was 1 km/h, the accuracy of the seeding monitoring reached 96.7%, and the accuracy of the missed seeding monitoring reached 97.4%, which met the performance indicators of the seeding monitoring system. The soil trench test results showed that, at different operating speeds, the relative error of the seeded quantity for the measurement by the seeding monitoring system was 2.4%−5.2%, with an average relative error of 3.86%, and the relative error of missed seeding was 2.1%−7.3%, with an average relative error of 4.66%.

Conclusion This seeding monitoring system can ensure the accuracy of the measurement results during a long period of continuous work, which meets the requirements of the monitoring system for garlic planter and can realize the real-time monitoring of the sowing process.