This study develops a novel electric-driven metering device to address the mismatch between the seeder rotation speed and vehicle speed in traditional mechanical precision hill direct-seeding metering devices for rice, which is caused by wheel slippage. The device integrates a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) speed measurement module and an optimised incremental Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control algorithm, enabling precise seeding through electric drive. A multidisciplinary collaborative design approach is employed, and field experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the novel device under conditions of vehicle speeds ranging from 3 to 5 km/h, theoretical hill spacings of 0.15–0.25 m, and seeding rate adjustment positions of 1/3–1. The experiments use two rice varieties, “Longken 2021” from the northern rice growing region and “Jingliangyou Huazhan” from the southern rice growing region. The results demonstrate that the novel electric-driven metering device significantly outperformed the traditional mechanical device in terms of seeding precision, hill formation performance, and seeding rate accuracy. The novel device achieves a qualified rate of seeds per hill of 90.54%, with seedling omission and seed damage rates reduced to 4.98% and 0.69%, respectively. The hill diameter qualification rate increases to 95.21%, with no empty hills observed. The coefficient of variation of seeds per hill is maintained at 21.98%, meeting the agronomic requirement of 2–12 seeds per hill for conventional rice. However, for seeds with high moisture content and poor flowability (soaked seeds), the seed damage rate increases slightly by 0.47 percentage points. This study provided an efficient and reliable technical solution for the intelligent upgrading of precision rice direct-seeding equipment.
Li et al. (Fri,) studied this question.