A slide-clamp end-effector with only one drive cylinder was designed by combining the advantages of slide form and clamp form.This end-effector could penetrate into the nutritional substrate and clamp the seedling plug just by one push of the cylinder.The needles' insertion depth and penetration angle of the end-effector is adjustable.A visualization program was designed using Visual Basic.The structure parameters were optimized in the program according to the motion trail of needle cusp.The 3D model was de...