Design and Field Test of a Remotely Controlled Self-propelled Potato Harvester with Manual Sorting Platform

Potato production in the hilly and mountainous areas of Northwest China on small plots and sloping lands, does not allow large machines to enter the ground and to turn at the end of the field. Existing mechanized potato diggers usable on small plots of land require manual picking, which is very labor intensive. To address these issues, a remotely controlled, self-propelled potato combined harvester with manual sorting platform has been designed and a prototype built. The design and calculation of the main system of the prototype machine are presented in the paper. These include the structure and working parameters of the bionic excavating device, the potato-soil separating and lifting device, the double-channel sorting mechanism of potatoes and sundries, the hydraulic control of the jumbo bag loading and unloading mechanism, the crawler-type self-propelled chassis walking system, the transmission system and hydraulic control system, and the operating mechanism of the core components. Field experiments showed that the potato loss rate was 1.6%, the injury rate was 1.1%, the impurity rate was 2.3%, the skin broken rate was 1.8%, and the productivity was 0.1 to 0.13 hectares/hour. All the indexes of the field performance test meet the national and industrial standards, and the test results meet the design requirements for combined operations of excavating, separation, transportation, sorting, collecting, and unloading potatoes.