• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.399-405
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• 1996

In order to maintain a constant speed ratio between the tractor and attached seed planter, a feedback control unit to rotate the feed shaft of the planter in proportional to the ground speed of the tractor was designed. The fifth wheel was used as a ground speed sensor for the unit. Using this control unit a feed shaft driving system was developed and tested to estimate its performance both in laboratory and fields. The test results showed that the system rotates the feed shaft proportionally to the ground speed in the range of the normal planting speed of 0.5-0.8m/s with errors less than 5%.