WHEAT HARVESTER

A major-project by
Team A1606
PROJECT GUIDE:

Prof. Veeresh Balikai

Mech dept.
Presented by
Name

ROLL NUMBER

Aakash Hoskoti

001

Akarsh M Gurikar

005

Karthik Baligar

036

Mohd. Aseem

058

Agenda
Problem Definition
Need Statement
Design Brief / Attributes
Objective Tree
Market Analysis
Functional Structure
Product Design Specification

Problem Definition
Manual harvesting of wheat is tedious and time consuming and the
labourers are not efficient and are facing health issues. There is often
problem to get enough labour at peak period. Hence there is a need of
low cost mechanical device/machine which minimizes the work load
on farmers for wheat harvesting.

Constraints:
Farmers cannot afford costly machines and use of complex mechanisms leads to
maintenance problems. As high power is essential it may lead to use of engines,
leading to environmental pollution. There are manufacturing difficulties.
The constraints that are analysed are as follows :
1. Lower cost price
2. Less Maintenance cost
3. Consume Less space
4. Ease of setup

Morphological chart
Means
Function

Movement

Wheels

Sliding

Levitation

Belt drive

Power
Source

Manual

I.C Engine

Pneumatic Electric
compressor battery

Cutting
technique

Rotary
cutters

Mechanise
d cutting

manual

Machine
actuation

AC motors

Hydraulic
means

Pneumatic
means

Cutting
Positioning

Horizontal

Vertical

tilted

Cut and
place

4 bar

ScottRussell

Picking arm Fixed fishing

hook type
fingers

DC motors

5
Chain
drive
Solar
powered

BLACK
BOX
HARVESTED
WHEAT

ENERGY

WHEAT HARVESTER

WHEAT
PLANTS

STORED
WHEAT

White
box
POWER
SOURCE

WHEAT
PLANTS

PNEUMATIC
ACTUATING

PLACING

CUTITNG

HARVESTED
WHEAT

STORAGE

WHEAT
STORAGE

Objective
treeWHEAT
HARVESTER

Safety

Economy

Safe for
users
Corrosion
resistant
Environmental
friendly

NO Sharp
Edges

Low Cost price

Low
maintenance
Low cost of
replaceable
parts

Efficiency
Durable
Easy to
repair
Positive
drive
system

CONCEPTUAL DESIGNS
The process that is followed to conceptualize on the design
alternatives was achieved through brain storming process.
A guided brainstorming session was set aside to brainstorm either
individually or as a collective group about a wheat harvester under the
constraints of perspective and time.
This type of brainstorming removes all cause for conflict and
constrains conversations while stimulating critical and creative
thinking in an engaging, balanced environment.
As many as 3 design ideas were generated as an outcome of the brain
storming process.

CONCEPT 1 - (ENGINE MOUNTED HARVESTER)

 OBJECTIVES
The main objective of this type of harvester is to harvest the wheat with minimal
human effort by using engine.
CUSTOMER REQUIREMENT 1.
2.
3.
4.

Easy cutting
Low operating cost
Ease of setup
Low maintenance cost

.PRINCIPLE OF WORKING
There is an engine mounted in this type of harvester, which serves as a power source to
the cutters and the cutters are connected to the engine via belt drive. There is a series of
reduction and parallel reduction in power to the cutter from the engine.

 SPECIFICATION/ FEATURES
Engine 97.2 cc
Fuel capacity 11 ltr
Four stroke Air cooled engine
Bore and stroke of 50mm X 49.5mm.
LINKS AND JOINTS Belt drive.
OPERATIONS/POWER SUPPLY Petrol engine
MANUFACTURING COST 15000/ MAINTENANCE COST 1000/- for 6 months

APPLICATIONS Conventionally used by farmers having large farms as the engine output is more
and has to be used efficiently in order to produce the maximum effect in harvesting .

ADVANTAGES high power output and efficiency of petrol engine is high as it is Hero Honda
engine, and works with minimal human intervention.

DISADVANTAGES costly, high power output is not necessary and reduction in cutter rpm has to
be reduced.
It is not easy in having reduction of power from the engine to cutter. This machine is also bulky and
more noise causing irritation and consumes petrol and pollutes the environment including the farm and
crops. The weight of the engine along with all other components increases the weight.

 LIMITATIONS cannot be used for small sized farm holders because it is costly.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The efficiency of the engine can be increased there by increasing the output of the machine by
considerable amount.
The weight of the machine can be reduced so that it can be used easily and more efficiently.

CONCEPT 2 - (BATTERY POWERED HARVESTER)

PRINCIPLE OF WORKING
It is powered by battery and operated by DC motor. The DC motor get
the power from battery which is mounted on the machine. The cutters
are mounted on the motor shafts and this motor is placed at the front
end of the machine.
SPECIFICATION/ FEATURES

Battery
Power 12V, 35Ah
Weight 10 kg
Cost 5000 INR with 48 months warranty

Geared Motor
Power 12V

 OPERATIONS/POWER SUPPLY - Battery and motor driven

MANUFACTURING COST - Around 8000 INR
MAINTENANCE COST After two years of service the battery
conditions has to be rechecked and motors have should be oiled and
greased properly, otherwise the maintenance cost will increase leading
to the failure of the product

 APPLICATIONS - Energy Harvesting Solar Chargers Thermal Electric Generator

(TEG) Harvesting
ADVANTAGES- light weight, can be moved with ease.
DISADVANTAGES - bad harvesting capacity, low rpm motors are available and hence
AC motors are to be used with further increases the cost and also the machine is not
portable as it needs continuous AC power supply
LIMITATIONS is not an efficient harvesting machine
Future developments - The output of the motor has to be increased so as to get a
efficient cutting of the crop.

DATUM CONCEPT

CONCEPT 3 (PNEUMATIC POWERED HARVESTER)

Objective:
We are designing and manufacturing a low cost, low maintenance, good quality
machine for harvesting of wheat. As the small scale farmers are inefficient. They
find it difficult to invest more in harvesting the crop because the profit earned by
them is minimum and hence cannot afford a machine to do the job.
The main objectives that are formulated as follows:
1. Low cost
2. Low maintenance
3. Portable and compact
4. Easy to use
5. Good quality (ex: corrosion resistant)

CUSTOMER REQUIREMENT
Efficient cutting of the crops.
The machine should not harm the crops in any way.
Low maintenance of the machine.
Easy to use.
Separate storage facility for the crops as and when they are harvested
so that additional labour force is not required to do the job.
Operating cost of the machine should be less

PRINCIPLE OF WORKING
This has a 4 wheel base frame. The front side of the machine will have
a pneumatic rotary cylinder which can be adjusted according to
required height. This cylinder has a shaft which is rotating at a speed
of 1500 rpm to 2000 rpm which is driven by a compressed air and
there is a compressor which compresses the air using a 12V DC motor.

SPECIFICATION/ FEATURES
Pneumatic cylinder specification 2000 rpm
DC battery specification - 12 V, 35Ah.
Weight - 10 kg
Air tank 9200 cc.
Pneumatic compressor

OPERATIONS/POWER SUPPLY Power - pneumatic supply

and DC battery
MANUFACTURING COST Around 7000/-

D C Compressor working on 12V DC 800/ Pneumatic rotary actuator 3000/ Air tank 1000/ Battery 1200/ Cutters 400/
MAINTENANCE COST very low maintenance cost as
compared to engine type of harvester which is chosen to be
the datum.

ADVANTAGES
1. Use of non-conventional energy for the crop cutting action.
2. Not using any fossil fuels which are depleting now and becoming costlier.
3. Low investment.
4. Cutting is very fast since cutting is working at high speed.
5. Mechanization of crop cutting which would have used many labours for the job
which are costly now.
6. Due to short of labour, the crop cutting is not postponed, it is done in time to have
proper yield.
7. A single person can do the crop cutting faster than manual process which is tedious
and hazardous also.
8. Easy to use.
9. Less investment and affordable for small farmers.
10.The novelty of the machine lies in its portability.
11.It is pneumatic powered machine hence air is required for its operation unlike petrol
which may deplete,

 DISADVANTAGES maintenance is bit high compared to battery

operated harvester.
LIMITATIONS cannot be used for large farms because the
compressor that we are using is low powered and can only be used for
small farms.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS The compressor and the air tank size
and capacity can be increased depending upon the requirement of the
farmer.
The machine has to be made usable and should be in working
condition for large farms as well.

INNOVATION:
It is completely different from the products that are available in the
market as we are using a different concept by utilising pneumatic
power in the working principle of the machine.
This is a very unique and yet to be realised. We have totally
reengineered the available concepts of the harvesting.
The sole purpose of the machine is to harvest the crop efficiently by
using nonconventional source that is with the help of atmospheric air,
which never can get depleted.

 The additional feature in our machine which makes it stand apart

amongst the existing harvester is that at this cheap rate we are also
providing with storage facility of the harvested crop, as at the time of
market survey we got the first hand information from the farmers itself
that there is a need for storage of the harvested crop, because the
farmers are spending additional amount and time to store it at a
particular place.
Hence by using our device the harvested crops will be stored in the
machine itself which can be accessed at the end of harvesting.

 One more important feature in our machine would be that the cutters
height and tilting position can be adjusted according to the need of the
farmers, as again by the customer survey we got to know that the
existing machines fails to provide this feature of height and tilting
position of the cutters as the cutters are rigidly fixed to the frame
itself.

Pugh evaluation
ATTRIBUTES/CONCEPTS

WEIGHTAGE

ENGINE
DRIVEN

PNEUMATIC
MACHINE

ELECTRIC
HARVESTER

PRINCIPLE OF WORKING

10

MANUFACTURING COST

MAINTAINANCE COST

SAFETY

CONSUME LESS SPACE

EASE OF SETUP

MOVEMENT

ACTUATION

CUT AND STORE

TOTAL +

TOTAL -

-4

OVERALL SETUP
TOTAL WEIGHTAGE

HAND HELD