Fully automatic grafting machine design for solanaceous vegetables

Addressing automation demands for grafting solanaceous vegetables, a kind of automatic grafting machine was designed based on semi-automatic grafting machine prototype．A symmetrical dual-station architecture was used to integrate high-precision mechanical arm, four-station variable pitch end actuator, and linear module conveying system to realize rootstock/paniclem synchronous seedling feeding, precision cutting, fast bonding, and clamping．Grafting experiments showed that fully automatic grafting system reached 837 seedlings per hour, which was approximately 2 times of semi-automatic grafting machines and 6 times faster than manual grafting．It maintained successful grafting rates at 96.5% and survival rates at 94.5%, with survival rate 2.5 percentage points higher than manual grafting．Equipment has overcame key technical challenges such as multiple-seedling coordinated operation and high-speed non-destructive clamping, meeting high efficiency and stable production requirements of industrialized seedling cultivation．