Development of a Crawler Type Vehicle to Travel in Water Paddy Rice Field for Water-Dropwort Harvest

Purpose: This study was conducted to develop a rubber-crawler type vehicle as a traveling device for harvesting water-dropwort cultivated in water contained paddy rice field in winter season. Methods: A commercial rubber-crawler type vehicle was used to investigate application of rubber crawler to the paddy rice field as preliminary test. As the result of the preliminary test, a both prototype traveling device with rubber crawlers for a water-dropwort harvest was designed with inclination of $45^{\circ}$ at the front-end and rear-end of crawler under the basic water depth of 0.6 m in the paddy rice field. The device was fabricated and attached to the experimental harvesting test devices on the front of the prototype vehicle. The size of the prototype crawler vehicle with a harvesting part is $2,800{\times}1,460{\times}1,040 $ (mm) ($L{\times}W{\times}H$) with weight of 9.21 kN (maximum). Sizes of the crawler of prototype vehicle are ground contact length of 900 mm, width of 180 mm, height of 1,070 mm and distance between center to center of crawlers of 720 mm. The side-overturn angle of the prototype was $26.4^{\circ}$. Results: Driving performance of the prototype vehicle in water contained paddy field were good at both forward and reverse (backward) directions as weights were applied. The drawbar pull and the maximum sinking depth of the prototype vehicle were 3.5 kN and 0.13 m respectively at water depth of 0.5 m, when the weight and bearing capacity of the prototype rubber crawler in the paddy field were 8.51 kN and 26.3 $kN/m^2$, respectively. Conclusions: Results of the driving test performance of the prototype crawler in paddy rice field at the water depth of 0.5 m were satisfactory. The prototype had enough drawbar pull and driving ability in the deep water contained paddy field.