MUMBAI, India, May 29 -- Intellectual Property India has published a patent application (202641061772 A) filed by Mohan Kandasamy; Sri Shanmugha College Of Engineering And Technology; A. Abishek; R. Kabilan; D. Kaviyanjali; S. Preethi; V. Dharmaraj; S. Pramoth Kumar; A. Harini; and M. Sowndhararajan, Velur, Tamil Nadu, on May 15, for 'design and development of mini sunflower harvester.'
Inventor(s) include Mohan Kandasamy; Sri Shanmugha College Engineering And Technology; A. Abishek; R. Kabilan; D. Kaviyanjali; S. Preethi; V. Dharmaraj; S. Pramoth Kumar; A. Harini; and M. Sowndhararajan.
The application for the patent was published on May 29, under issue no. 22/2026.
According to the abstract released by the Intellectual Property India: "Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is one of the major oilseed crops grown widely in India, including states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. Manually harvesting such crops in small and marginal farms involves intense labour efforts, increased harvesting duration, and creates drudgery problems among women farmers and elders. Although combine harvesters are highly effective machines, their cost effectiveness and physical adaptability are a problem since they are too large in size for small and irregularly shaped fields common in rural areas of India. Therefore, a compact battery-operated Mini Sunflower Harvester was designed and fabricated. The machine combines the processes of cutting, threshing, cleaning and collecting seeds into a single operation unit. The machine comprises of reaper blade cutting system, guiding feeder, threshing drum with rasp bar and peg tooth mechanisms, adjustable gap concave, cleaning unit (screen and blower) and seed collecting container. The width of the machine is 600 mm and is light weight, manual and uses electric motors. Structural design strength analysis, motor requirement, efficiency of the threshing process and seed breakage were tested in the preliminary evaluation of the machine. It can be seen that the harvesting, threshing and seed breaking processes are highly efficient ( 85%, 90% and significantly reduced labour requirement). In terms of economic feasibility of using the machine, its total fabrication cost amounts to about 15,000-320,000 whereas a combine harvester costs up to 15-30 Lakh. Thus, the machine addresses the dual issues of labour shortage and high harvesting costs in small scale sunflower farms. Keywords: Mini sunflower harvester, battery-operated harvester, rasp bar, peg tooth mechanism, seed separation."
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