High precision pneumatic planters have been developed for many varieties of crops, for a wide range of seed sizes, resulting to uniform seeds distribution along the travel path, in predefined spacing. The objective of the present work was to develop a high-resolution optical system for evaluation of performance parameters of pneumatic planters. This paper describes the design, construction and evaluation of the optical system. The hardware setup along with the image processing and statistical analysis algorithms are presented. The developed system includes a line scan camera, connected to a frame grabber, installed in personal computer. The lines acquired by the camera were processed on-line. Seeds’ location, as well as seeds’ spacing, on a virtual belt running underneath the planter were computed. Furthermore, seeds’ distribution parameters were calculated and displayed on-line, while they exit from the planter. Comparison of the developed optical system with a conventional grease belt, showed that the seeds’ location as calculated by the optical system coincided with the seeds location as measured on a grease belt. The developed system provided reliable statistical parameters of the seeds’ distribution, as defined by ISO standards, for regular shape seeds like cotton, as well as for irregular shape seeds like sunflower.
High precision pneumatic planters have been developed for many varieties of crops, for a wide range of seed sizes, resulting to uniform seeds distribution along the travel path, in predefined spacing. The objective of the present work was to develop a high-resolution optical system for evaluation of performance parameters of pneumatic planters. This paper describes the design, construction and evaluation of the optical system. The hardware setup along with the image processing and statistical analysis algorithms are presented. The developed system includes a line scan camera, connected to a frame grabber, installed in personal computer. The lines acquired by the camera were processed on-line. Seeds’ location, as well as seeds’ spacing, on a virtual belt running underneath the planter were computed. Furthermore, seeds’ distribution parameters were calculated and displayed on-line, while they exit from the planter. Comparison of the developed optical system with a conventional grease belt, showed that the seeds’ location as calculated by the optical system coincided with the seeds location as measured on a grease belt. The developed system provided reliable statistical parameters of the seeds’ distribution, as defined by ISO standards, for regular shape seeds like cotton, as well as for irregular shape seeds like sunflower.