Design and experiment of monitoring system for rice seedling transplanting manipulator based on the programmable logic controller

Objective  In order to improve the automation and information levels of rice seedling transplanting manipulator, a set of monitoring system for rice seedling transplanting manipulator was designed.

Method  According to the working principle of rice seedling transplanting manipulator, the programmable logic controller (PLC) was used as the main control unit, and the hardware circuit and software program of the system were designed. The human-machine interaction monitoring interface of rice seedling transplanting manipulator was designed with a touch screen and the configuration software. The mobile APP for remotely monitoring system was designed with the GRM530 communication module, cloud server, Android mobile phone, and Android Studio software. When the monitoring system was working, the GRM530 communication module read the specified memory data in the PLC and uploaded the data to the cloud server through 4G network or WIFI. Then the Android mobile APP could directly access and download the data in the cloud server. Finally, the data was presented visually in the APP.

Result  The monitoring system was stable and reliable. The packet loss rates of remote communication for 10 repeated tests all were 0 and the average time delay was 25 ms, which showed that the Android mobile APP client and the rice seedling transplanting manipulator could realize stable and reliable two-way communication. The data transmission of the system was bidirectional. The human-machine interaction function was normal, and the touch screen and Android mobile APP could accurately feedback the working status and data. The user could send the control instructions to PLC through the Android mobile APP to realize the monitoring and controlling integration of the whole system. The response delay of remote control command was low, and the maximum response delay was no more than 0.63 s.

Conclusion  The monitoring system of rice seedling transplanting manipulator can remotely monitor the working status and data of the manipulator in real-time. It has a good human-machine interaction interface and has a certain guiding significance for promoting the deep integration of informatization and agricultural machinery.