Design and Experimental Study of a Multifunctional Intelligent Vegetable Seeder

Vegetable seeders effectively reduce labor intensity and improve seeding uniformity and operation efficiency. However, existing models suffer from limited functionality, inadequate intelligence, and low energy efficiency. Accordingly, an intelligent vegetable seeder integrating furrow opening, seeding, soil covering, and compaction was developed, with key parameters and working principles of the seed-metering device, furrow opener, and soil-covering and compacting device defined. Its intelligent control system optimized seeding monitoring and execution control via the Kalman filter algorithm. A dual power-supply mode (photovoltaic (PV) + storage battery) ensured operation endurance. Using a Box–Behnken design, the seed-metering device parameters were optimized by response surface methodology, with pocket wheel speed, seed-stripping brush installation angle, and pocket count as factors and seeding qualified rate as the index. The results showed that the factors ranked in descending order of influence were the number of pockets, rotational speed of the pocket wheel, and the installation angle of the seed-stripping brush; the theoretically optimal parameters were pocket wheel speed of 45.70 r·min−1, brush installation angle of 34.71°, and 13.84 pockets, corresponding to a model-predicted peak seeding qualified rate of 99.04%. The proposed seeder achieves precision seeding for small-sized pelleted vegetable seeds, whereas its structural configuration requires further optimization for non-pelleted vegetable seeds.