Design and test of a Chinese wolfberry harvester using arrayed vibration units

Harvesting equipment is closely related to the harvesting quality and efficiency, particularly for the Chinese wolfberry. In this study, a method of arrayed vibration unit was proposed in the mechanized harvesting equipment, according to the agronomy of hedgerow type Chinese wolfberry bilateral fruit hanging planting. The structural design of the arrayed vibration components and the fruit receiving platform was carried out, and then the walking, conveying, sorting and stability analysis of the whole machine were carried out. The arrayed layout parameters of different stubble numbers of Chinese wolfberry Xia Guo in Ningxia were measured. A series of significant paramerers were conducted to determine the vibration unit structure, vibration frequency, vibration angle, the crawler assembly, the transmission structure and driving of horizontal and vertical conveyor belts, the position of fruit receiving basket and lifting conveyor belt and the wind speed of debris sorting. Furthermore, the driving stability of the whole machine was verified on the slope. After that, the performance tests of the whole machine were carried out to evaluate the feasibility and efficiency of the mechanism, according to the test conditions and walking, harvesting and sorting. The selected indicators and the results showed that the maximum running speed of the whole chassis in all conditions was up to 0.252 m/s, the minimum turning radius was limited in 1.86 m, the maximum slope was 32°, the maximum crossing ditch width was no more than 0.5 m, and the maximum crossing step height was 11 cm. All the indicators were verified for the better walking performance, compared with the traditional. The harvesting object was taken as the sixth crop of Chinese wolfberry in Xiaguo, Ningxia Ningqi No.1. The amplitude was fixed at 15 mm. The optimum operating conditions were as follows: the driving speed was 1 300 r/min, vibration time was 5 s, the picking efficiency of mature Chinese wolfberry was 4 037 fruits per minute, the net picking rate of mature Chinese wolfberry was 88.95%, the damage rate of mature Chinese wolfberry was 3.64%, the damage rate of dried mature Chinese wolfberry was 4.17%, the comprehensive false picking rate of immature fruits, olives and flowers was 3.80%, and the efficiency ratio of mechanical picking to human picking was 26.91. All the performance indicators were presented that the Chinese wolfberry fruit of mechanized picking was fully met the requirements of its commercial processing. In addition, the wind speed was determined to be at least 5 m/s, which was beneficial to the separation of fruits and leaves.