Sprouted Potato Tuber Dynamics and Kinematics during Mechanized Planting

The article reviews the interaction process of a sprouted potato tuber withpotato-planter's operating units. The purpose of the research is to ensure its stable orientation on the bottom of a furrow with the sprouts upwards. As a result of mathematical process simulation, the reasons of tubers' space orientation instability during utilization of known machine prototypes. With regard to this, an optimal algorithm of sprouted tubers' planting process was defined resulting in design of a new planting machine and implementation of the algorithm for interaction with planted tubers that is close to optimal. Besides, the axis of the vehicle's supporting wheels is the axis of planting machine at the same time which eliminates the need in both mechanical transmission and rolling bearings. In other words, the operating procedure optimality is successfully combined with simplicity of the construction and low price of the machine. The potato-planter has been successfully utilized at the farms in the Bryansk region for many years.