CONCEPTUAL DESIGN AND INTRODUCING PROPER TRACTOR MOUNTED PALM LIFTER USING ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS (AHP)

Because of palm lifter (service) shortage, a mechanized approach does not exist to cover all farmer needs, and usually most of palm production applications in the world were performed manually. All field operations (services) which is done using the palm lifter are as follows: 1- To pruning leaves and bottom leaves, 2- Pollination, 3- cluster thinning, 4- pack the clusters, and 5- moving clusters, 6- spraying, and 7- harvesting. This study was conducted in three phases; In phase one, province surveying were applied to gain technical information from current machine in palm cultivation and harvesting application in five provinces and prepared questioner contained palm geometric characteristics such as height and row spacing (density) and time limit of the palm lifter application in cultivation and harvesting were recorded. The analysis of the measured data show that in more than 75% of the objected provinces of date palm orchards, palms have a height of 10 to 12 meters. In the second phase, based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) a proper palm lifter was selected between seven domestic and foreign (imported) machine. The results showed that despite of imported palm lifter (Magny and Italian), AERI prototype lifter is chosen as a proper one. In the third phase, the conceptual design of prototype machine was performed based on gained information and the machine will be had advantages of existing machinery and lowest disadvantages of them.