To improve the quality and efficiency of peanut half-feed harvesting in clay hilly areas in South China and address problems such as excessive soil clumps, broken branches, and seedlings in pods, difficulty in cleaning impurities, and the need for manual picking owing to the high soil viscosity and easy hardening, a new half-feed peanut cleaning picker suitable for southern clay hilly areas, including its overall structure and transmission system, was designed. The picker can perform the operations of soil removal, clamping and conveying of seedlings, and orderly pod picking and pod gathering. The structural design of key components and the analysis and determination of key parameters were carried out. By adopting a crank rocker mechanism, a soil removal device was designed. A single-side chain clamping conveying device, which consists of a clamping chain, a pretightening spring, and a guide rail, was designed. A phase tangent configuration of opposite rollers was used to design a pod picking device. Thus, the functions of the half-feed peanut picker, such as cleaning and removing soil, smooth and reliable clamping and conveying, and flexible pod picking, were realized. The field test revealed that when the picking rate was greater than 97%, the soil removal pods drop rate was less than 10%, and the soil removal rate was greater than 50%. The performance indicators meet the design requirements. This study provides a technical reference for the research and development of clean picking technology for upright peanuts in the clay hilly areas of southern China.

To solve the problems of excessive soil lumps, broken branches and seedlings in pods and difficulty in removing impurities in the harvested pods of peanuts in the hilly areas of southern China, which is due to the high soil viscosity and easy hardening, and to improve the soil removal effect of the peanut half-feed pod picker in hilly areas of China, this article designed a half-feed peanut-cleaning picker suitable for southern clay hilly areas and provided a detailed introduction to the overall structure, working principle, and adjustment methods of various operating parameters. Through field measurement experiments, the influencing factors and laws of soil removal performance indicators, such as the comprehensive soil removal rate and POD drop rate, were studied. The results showed that the comprehensive soil removal rate gradually increased with increasing soil patting frequency, soil patting amplitude, and picking roller speed, first increased and then decreased with increasing picking roller gap and gradually decreased with increasing soil patting plate gap and clamping conveyor chain speed. The comprehensive soil removal rate of the soil patting plate using the opposite patting method was greater than that of the swinging patting method. The soil removal pod drop rate increased gradually with increasing soil patting frequency and amplitude and decreased with increasing soil patting plate gap and clamping conveyor chain speed. The soil removal pod drop rate of the soil patting plate using swing patting was lower than that using the opposite patting method. The speed and gap of the picking roller had no effect on the soil removal pod drop rate. The frequency, amplitude, form, and gap of the soil patting plate had extremely significant impacts on the rate of decrease in the number of soil removal pod drop rate. The clamping conveyor chain speed had a significant impact, while the speed and gap of the picking roller had no significant impact. The influence of all factors on the comprehensive soil removal rate was extremely significant. This study provides a theoretical basis and technical reference for parameter optimization research on peanut-cleaning picking machines in the clay hilly areas of southern China.