Design of a Position Control for a Cutting System of a Maize-Husking Machine

Designing a maize (Zea mays L.) husking machine requires knowing the geometric properties of the fruit, as they form the input data for evaluating the mathematical models used in the analysis of the fruit-machine system. There is at University of Chapingo a maize husking machine that generates damage to the leaves of 3.41% and 53.35% of wasted grain. The goal of the research was to develop a control system for a maize-husking machine's cutting blade positioning by entering the data of the desired position of cut in a graphical user interface control-system applying MATLAB and Arduino cards. The mechanism uses a linear actuator with a velocity of 2.15cm * s-1. The control system was tested by applying five types of PID family controllers. The tests were performed with a reference distance of 5 cm to locate the mechanism. The most convenient controller was the PID with a stabilization time of 2.68s.