2.3.2. Field Test

In order to investigate the stability and monitoring accuracy of the seeding monitoring system under field working conditions, a field trial of seeding monitoring was carried out in Tiemenguan City, Xinjiang on 20 March 2022. The test equipment was: a John Deere 804 tractor, Tiancheng 2MBJ-2/12 cotton precision film laying planter (Xinjiang Tiancheng Agricultural Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Tiemenguan City, Xinjiang, China, working width 4.4 m, laying 12 rows of film holes, weight 1300 kg), vertical disc hole seeding metering device, cotton sowing quality monitoring system, etc.

Before the sowing monitoring test, the influence of light conditions on the missed sowing monitoring module was examined [4]. No seeds were placed in this box, leaving the planter in a stationary state in the field. It connected the industrial computer with the sensing device and turned on the monitoring system. It was tested under conditions of sunlight, artificial lighting, and artificial blocking of natural light. The test results showed that under normal light conditions in the field, the monitoring system count was always 0. The normal light conditions in the field had no effect on the work of the monitoring device. In order to further test the effect of field monitoring of the monitoring system, an appropriate amount of cotton seeds were put into the seed box. It installed the 12-channel missing-seeding monitoring modules with different channel addresses and different channel numbers on the 12-channel cotton precision seed metering device. The tester held the cotton sowing monitor and showed that the industrial computer was sitting in the co-pilot position.

During the test, the sowing quality monitoring system of the cotton precision seeder was powered on. The data were cleared, and then the machine was started to move forward (Figure 7a). The speed of the seeding plate was controlled by the forward speed of the implement. This made the John Deere 804 one gear faster with a small throttle speed (about 2 km/h, the diameter of the hole seeder was 420 mm) as the base speed, which translated into a seeding disc speed of about 25 r/min. The rotation was controlled by adjusting the motor. The rotation speed was set to 3 levels, which were 20, 25, and 30 r/min. The forward distance of the machine was 100 m and the number of rotations was 75.8. There were 15 holes in each circle, with a total of 1137 holes. Monitoring of seeding and missed seeding was recorded. By looking at the cotton seeds discharged into the soil and counting them manually (Figure 7b), the actual seeding amount was counted. Compared with the results obtained by the monitoring system, this was used to evaluate the work stability and reliability of the monitoring system under field work. The test was repeated 3 times, and the results were averaged to avoid errors.

**Figure 7.** Field sowing monitoring test site: (**a**) prototype field test and (**b**) artificial counting.
