TITLE:
Solar Plough: A helping hand For Farmers
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
A plough is a tool or farm implement used in farming for initial cultivation of soil in preparation for sowing seed or planting to loosen or turn the soil. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by working animals such as horses or cattle, but in modern times are drawn by tractors. Due to changing economy of country, Farmers has been committing suicides as they are not able to use expensive but necessary equipment used in agriculture. Also, farmers are not able to pay large amount of money for equipment such as Tractor for ploughing. If any of the Farmer decides to use such expensive equipment, still its fuel requirement, maintainace is high which is not affordable to any of the farmers. Due to shortage of non-renewable sources of energy, their cost has been increasing tremendously. Now it's need of time to use renewable sources of energy in every aspect of life. The daily cost of labour has been increasing tremendously. Thus, most of the farmers of rural area are not able to fulfill high cost requirement of labour. Hence, complete load of work is transfers to that particular manpower which leads to decrease in efficiency of agriculture and also causes decrease in economic condition of farmers. To achieve high efficiency with less labour in a less time without transferring load to particular manpower, is a need of time. It can be done by utilizing current Technologies or proposing new technology for Agriculture.
SOLUTION The main tagline of our project is "small is big". Now days, due to shortage of non-renewable energy sources they are costly. So use of renewable energy such as Solar is need of time. We are designing a Solar Plough for ploughing land before seeding. Solar Plough consists of Solar Plough vehicle and Mechanical plough.
Solar Plough vehicle: A solar Plough vehicle is an electric vehicle powered completely or significantly by direct solar energy. Here, solar energy is use to provide power to all parts of vehicle and also for communications with external functions.
- Parts of Solar Plough:
Solar Panel:
The panels are power devices. The number of panel to be use is depends on size of vehicle or we can say on power requirement of complete transmission system.
Batteries: The batteries store electrical energy from solar panel and make them available for motor use. The efficiency of Lead acid battery is 80%.
1. Electric Motor- DC: Dc brush motor is to be used to drive motor.
2. Brakes: Disc brakes are desirable as they work on hydraulic principal.
3. Tyres: Tire selection will affect rolling resistance which affects how far the solar car will travel with available energy. For our application, a tire with high thickness and having circular threading has to be use.
Mechanical plough: Mechanical plough is a large farming implement with one or more blades fixed in a frame, drawn over soil to turn it over and cut furrows in preparation for the planting of seeds. This plough is to be connected at the backside of the vehicle, so that it can prepare soil for planting seeds with less manual efforts.
Advantages:
1. Low cost.
2. Efficient use of renewable energy.
3. Manpower requirement is very less, thus labour cost will decrease.
4. It doesn’t require special skill to handle it.
Disadvantages:
- The amount of energy supply by photovoltaic cell is not constant due to seasonal variations.
- The life of battery is less thus needs to be renew after certain interval of time.