To address the issues of significant soil blockage and high potato damage rates in current potato picking machines, this study developed a toggle lever-type potato picker designed to minimize potato damage and improve operational efficiency. Design calculations were performed for the picker components, and kinematic analyses were conducted for the toggle lever. Single-factor experiments were carried out to determine the variation in performance parameters of the potato picker under different experimental conditions. Discrete element simulations were performed to measure the peak soil height before the pick-up shovel and the peak force on potatoes during the pick-up process. A Box–Behnken response surface experiment was conducted using toggle lever speed, machine forward speed, and shovel angle as experiments factors. Subsequently, an analysis of variance was performed, and a mathematical regression model was established based on the experiments results. The findings revealed that at a toggle lever speed of 50 r/min, machine forward speed of 0.9 m/s, and shovel angle of 19°; the potato leakage rate was 2.32%, and the potato damage rate was 2.72%, thereby meeting the requirements stipulated by potato mechanized picking technology regulations.

The purpose of this paper is the design of a potato drip irrigation tape recycling machine that would not require manual assistance or suffer from broken tapes. To clarify the recycling performance of the new potato drip irrigation tape recycling machine under different working parameters, a single-factor performance experiment was conducted. To investigate the reasons for variations in the performance indexes of the machine under different operating parameters, RecurDyn-EDEM coupled simulation experiments were carried out, with the peak height of soil and the maximum bending angle of the drip irrigation tape during the recycling process as the experimental indexes. To determine the optimal working parameter combinations and to clarify the effects of the interaction of various factors on the performance indexes, a response surface experiment was conducted. Following this, an analysis of variance was performed, and a mathematical regression model was established based on the experimental results. The findings revealed that a machine forward speed of 2.4 km/h, a shovel angle of 12°, and a conveyor sprocket speed of 270 r/min resulted in a drip irrigation tape recovery rate of 95.2%, meeting the relevant standards for drip irrigation tape recycling operations.