With the advancement of modern agricultural technology, precision seeding has emerged as a critical approach to enhancing the crop yield and quality. Consequently, a garlic seeder insertion mechanism was developed to improve the accuracy and efficiency of garlic seeding. The single-seed extraction mechanism and the adjustment mechanism for the garlic clove direction were designed based on the appearance dimensions of garlic cloves, enabling precise single-seed selection and orientation. A kinematic model of the insertion planting process was established, with key parameters meticulously described and analyzed, providing theoretical support for determining optimal insertion parameters. A timing sequential control method was adopted to accurately control the periodic motion of the insertion planting mechanism. A speed detection device was utilized to monitor the travel speed of the crawler-type chassis and a rotational speed controller was developed to accurately regulate the rotational speed of the insertion mechanism, ensuring uniform planting distances. Field trials demonstrated that when the preset planting distance was set at 150 mm and sowing operations were conducted at speeds of 0.10 m/s, 0.15 m/s, and 0.20 m/s, the average sowing spacing values were 148 mm, 149 mm, and 151 mm, respectively, the maximum sowing spacing error and root mean square (RMS) error were 30 mm and 7 mm, with an average error of less than 10 mm, and the maximum coefficient of variation was 0.046. The upright rate exceeded 85%, and the missing seeding rate was below 5%. The above results indicated that the designed garlic planting machine insertion mechanism and control method conform to the agronomic requirements for garlic sowing operations.

Rice is the predominant grain crop in China, with its consumption showing a steady annual increase. Due to the diminishing labor force, China’s rice cultivation industry faces significant challenges and has an urgent requirement for automated rice transplanters. This study developed an agricultural navigation system integrating mechatronic-hydraulic control with navigation technologies to automate the rice transplanter’s driving and operational processes. The designed automation devices enable precise control over functions such as steering and working clutch. A path planning methodology was proposed to generate straight-line reference paths by giving target points and to determine the headland turning pattern based on the working width and turning radius of the rice transplanter. Additionally, an operational control strategy based on the finite state machine (FSM) was developed, enabling effective switching of the rice transplanter’s operational states through the designation of key points. The test results showed that the maximum lateral error of the rice transplanter along straight-line paths was 4.83 cm on the cement pavement and 6.30 cm in the field, with the maximum error in determining key points being 7.22 cm in the field. These results indicate that the agricultural navigation system developed in this study can achieve the automation of rice transplanters and provide certain inspiration for the research of autonomous agricultural vehicles.