Design of a Spring-Finger Potato Picker and an Experimental Study of Its Picking Performance

Lihe Wang, Fei Liu (), Qiang Wang, Jiaqi Zhou, Xiaoyu Fan, Junru Li, Xuan Zhao and Shengshi Xie
Additional contact information
Lihe Wang: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Fei Liu: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Qiang Wang: Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Technology Extension Centre, Hohhot 010010, China
Jiaqi Zhou: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Xiaoyu Fan: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Junru Li: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Xuan Zhao: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China
Shengshi Xie: College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010010, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-19

Abstract: To address the problems of low pickup rates and high rates of wounds in the mechanised harvesting of potatoes under sectional harvesting conditions, a spring-finger potato picker was designed and its overall structure and working principles were described. The kinematic principle of the spring-finger was analysed based on the picking constraints, and the kinematic parameters of the picker were determined. A response surface Box–Behnken Design test design was used to carry out a quadratic orthogonal rotational test, with the speed of the spring-finger, the forward speed of the machine, and the embedded depth as test factors, and the loss rate and the wounded potato rate as evaluation indicators. The test results were optimised and analysed. When the spring-finger speed was 19.57 r/min, the forward speed was 0.61 m/s and the embedded depth was 71.31 mm, the loss rate was 1.18%, and the wounded potato rate was 5.71%. The optimised data were verified, and the results showed that the loss rate of the spring-finger potato picker was 1.48% and the wounded potato rate was 4.98%, meeting the potato picking and harvesting requirements. The research can provide a theoretical basis and design reference for the development and application of sectional potato harvesting machinery.

Keywords: agricultural machinery; harvesting; potato; spring-finger; ADAMS-EDEM; loss rate; wounded potato rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/5/945/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/5/945/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:5:p:945-:d:1132543

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().