## 3 Results and Discussion
### Automatic Alignment System Effect Discussion  
To verify the effect of the automatic row alignment system on improving the quality of maize harvesting, a field trial was conducted in October 2021 in Rizhao, Shandong Province, on a maize seed direct harvesting machine manufactured by Wuzheng Group. The test was conducted in accordance with GB/T 5667-2007 \"Production Test Methods for Agricultural Machinery\", and a plot of 30 m in length was selected for the test before the test, including a 5 m acceleration zone, a 20 m test zone and a 5 m stopping and deceleration zone [40]. Normally, the harvester passed through the acceleration zone and the test zone in turn and finally stopped at the stopping and deceleration zone.  
Harvester tests were conducted in two groups, with the first group turning on the automatic alignment system, in which the driver controls the speed of the harvester only through the throttle during the harvesting process and the alignment system automatically controls the direction of travel of the harvester. The second group turned off the automatic alignment system and the driver manually altered the direction of travel of the harvester throughout the harvesting process. The driving speed of the harvester was 3.4 km/h in both test groups, and after each group of tests was completed in the harvesting process, eight 1 \(\times\) 1 m\({}^{2}\) sampling areas were selected in each test area to collect the fallen corn kernels and weigh them, and the corn kernels in the bins at the end of each test were weighed separately to calculate the loss rate of each sampling area, which was weighted to finally obtain the average loss rate using the automatic row-pairing system and without the automatic row-pairing system, respectively. Calculation of the average loss rate was carried out using Formulas (10) and (11). To acquire an average loss rate, the experiment was performed 10 times.  
\[S_{1}=\frac{1}{8}\sum_{i}^{i-10}\frac{W_{i}}{W_{i}+M_{1}}\times 100\% \tag{10}\]  
where, \(W_{i}\) is the amount of maize kernel drop loss in the area of the auto-pair harvest plot, \(i\) = 1, 2, 3 \(\dots\) 8, g; \(M_{1}\) is the mass of harvested kernels per unit area of the auto-pair harvest plot, g.  
\[S_{2}=\frac{1}{8}\sum_{i}^{i-10}\frac{W_{i}{}^{\prime}}{W_{i}{}^{\prime}+M_{2} }\times 100\% \tag{11}\]  
where, \(W_{i}{}^{\prime}\) is the mass of maize kernel drop loss in the area of the manual pair-row harvest plot, \(i\) = 1, 2, 3 \(\dots\) 8, g; \(M_{2}\) is the mass of harvested kernels per unit area of the manual pair-row harvest plot, g.  
The test outcomes are illustrated in Figure 18. The loss rate of corn seeds falling from the plot harvested by the automatic row-pairing system was 2.42%, and the loss rate of corn seeds falling from the plot harvested manually was 3.18% after the automatic row-pairing system was turned off. To comply with the requirements of GB/T 21963-2020 \"Maize Harvesting Machinery\", the total loss rate of maize seed direct harvesters \(\leq\)4%, which all meet the conditions. It can be concluded from the analysis that, on the one hand, the reliability of the automatic row alignment system of the corn harvester is verified; in comparison to manual row alignment, the use of the automatic row alignment system for corn harvesting reduces the loss rate of corn seeds falling by 0.76% representing a significant contribution to the reduction of the loss during corn harvesting and improving the harvesting quality [21; 41; 42].