Aiming at the problems of the poor passing capacity of machines and low cleaning rate of seed strip during wheat no-tillage sowing in annual double cropping areas of North China, a spiral discharge anti-blocking and row-sorting device (SDARD) was designed and is reported in this paper. After the straw was cut and chopped by the high-velocity rotating no-till anti-blocking knife group (NAKG), the straw was thrown into the spiral discharging mechanism (SDM) behind the NAKG. The chopped straw was discharged to the non-sowing area to reach the effect of seed strip cleaning through the interaction between the SDM and the row-sorting of straw mechanism (RSM). Based on a theoretical analysis for determining the parameters of crucial components, the quadratic rotation orthogonal combination test method was adopted, and the operating velocity of machines (OVM), the rotary velocity of the spiral shaft (RVSS), and the height of the holding hopper from the ground (HHHG) were selected as the test factors. The straw cleaning rate (SCR) was taken as the test index. The discrete element simulation test was carried out, the regression model of the SCR was established, and parameters optimization and field test were carried out. The results show that the significant order of the three influencing factors on the SCR was HHHG > OVM > RVSS. The optimal combination of operating parameters was that OVM was 5 km/h, RVSS was 80 r/min, and HHHG was 10 mm. Under the optimal parameter combination, the average SCR was 84.49%, which was 15.5% higher than the no-till planter without the device, and the passing capacity of machines was great, which met the agronomic requirements of no-tillage sowing of wheat in annual double cropping areas. This study could provide a reference for the design of no-tillage machines.

The collision restitution coefficient (CRC) is the essential parameter of the discrete element method (DEM) to study the interaction mechanism between corn seed and soil. The accuracy of its measurement results is the criticalness to ensuring simulation accuracy. In the current study, the CRC between corn seed and soil is mainly measured by the method of corn seed colliding with soil. However, since the soil is a granular body, the essence of the collision of corn seed with soil is the collision between one corn seed and a quantity of soil particles, resulting in inaccurate measurement results soil particles. Therefore, based on the collision dynamics theory of mass point and fixed surface, this paper proposed a measurement method of CRC to study the interaction mechanism between corn seed and soil. This paper analyzed the influence of mass point selection on the measurement results of CRC in the collision process. The measurement method was determined by taking soil particle as mass point and corn seed as fixed surface. To verify the feasibility of this method, a CRC measurement system was established based on high-speed camera technology. The soil particle was dropped at the heights of 10, 15, 20, and 25 cm to collide with the corn seed. The separation velocity and approaching velocity of the soil particle was measured to obtain the CRC between the corn seed and soil. Taking the CRC as the essential parameter of discrete element simulation, the discrete element simulation experiment (DESE) and the soil bin experiment (SBE)of corn seed free fall impact on soil were carried out, and the experiment results were compared and analyzed. In the experiment, the falling height (40, 50, 60, 70 cm) of corn seed and the touching position of the corn seed (positions a, b, c, d) were taken as the influencing factors. The movement state of corn seed and the separation approaching velocity ratio (SAVR) ξ during the collision were taken as the indexes. The results showed that when the positions of corn seed touched the soil was the same, with the increase of the falling height, the SAVR ξ obtained from the DESE and the SBE showed a downward trend. When the falling height was the same, and the corn seed touched the soil at positions b, c, and d, the motion state in the DESE was basically the same as that in the SBE. The relative error of the SAVR between the DESE and the SBE was less than 10%, which proves the feasibility of the method proposed in this paper. The measurement method of the CRC between corn seed and soil proposed in this study provided a theoretical research basis for clarifying the interaction mechanism between corn seed and soil and solving the seed bouncing in high-speed precision sowing.

This paper designed a symmetrical spiral row-sorting of the straw device (SSRSD) under the condition that the no-till anti-blocking knife cut and chopped the straw to guarantee the machine’s passing capacity. The row-sorting blade (RB) of the symmetrical spiral mechanism (SSM) pushed the straw that fell into the straw hopper to the non-sowing area on both sides of the sowing belt and played the role of row-sorting the straw. Based on a theoretical analysis of the relationship between the material-bearing capacity limit of the SSM and the straw mulching quantity (SMQ) in the actual operating area, the critical parameters of the SSM and its value ranges were determined. The results show that the average straw removing rate (SRR) of the no-till planter with the SSRSD was 87.98%, and the passing capacity of the machine was great. Compared with the no-till planter without the SSRSD, the average SRR was increased by 20.7%.

Cutting maize stalks using water jet cutting technology is a new method of stalk management before no-tillage sowing. Aiming to cut off the maize stalks (stems and stem nodes), we conducted an all-factor cutting experiment on stems and single-factor cutting experiments on stem nodes under different cutting parameters. The results showed that the cutoff ratio of the stems and stem nodes increased with water jet pressure and decreased with target distance and traverse speed. For cutting off the stems with a maximum traverse speed, the parameters were 120 MPa water jet pressure, 10 mm target distance, and 1371 mm/min traverse speed. When the target distance was 30 mm, the traverse speed was 4000 mm/min, and the water jet pressure was greater than or equal to 160 MPa, the cutoff ratio of stem nodes was 100%. Therefore, the water jet pressure ≥ 160 MPa, the target distance ≤ 10 mm, and the traverse speed ≤ 1371 mm/min were needed to cut off both. Moreover, bottom burrs, surface stripes, and cutting residue might appear due to the divergent and lagging characteristics of water jets. The results could provide basic data and technical support for cutting maize stalks with water jets.

Robotic meat cutting is increasingly in demand in meat industries due to safety issues, labor shortages, and inefficiencies. This paper proposes a multi-demonstration human–robot skill transfer framework to address the flexible and generalized cutting of sheep hindquarters with complex 3D anatomy structures by imitating humans. To improve the generalization with meat sizes and demonstrations and extract target cutting behaviors, multi-demonstrations of cutting are encoded into low-dimension latent space through principal components analysis (PCA), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), and Gaussian mixture regression (GMR). To improve the robotic cutting flexibility and the cutting behavior reproducing accuracy, this study combines a modified dynamic movement primitive (DMP) high-level behavior generator with the low-level joints admittance control (AC) through real-time inverse velocity (IV) kinematics solving and constructs the IVAC-DMP control module. The experimental results show that the maximum residual meat thickness in the sheep hindquarter cutting of sample 1 is 3.1 mm, and sample 2 is 3.8 mm. The residual rates of samples 1 and 2 are 5.6% and 4.8%. Both meet the requirements for sheep hindquarter separation. The proposed framework is advantageous for harvesting high-value meat products and providing a reference technique for robot skill learning in interaction tasks.