Potato is an important food crop in China, and its planting area and output rank first in the world. Due to the labor intensity and low efficiency of manual harvesting, mechanized harvesting has become an inevitable solution for the development of the potato industry. In this paper, on the basis of elaborating on mechanized harvesting operation modes for potatoes, the research progress of key technologies, such as top-killing potato seedlings, low-loss digging with reduced obstruction, limiting the depths of rows, high-efficiency separation, sorting tons of packages, and intelligent harvesting in China and abroad, is analyzed. By comparing the basic structure and technical characteristics of both domestic mechanized potato-harvesting equipment and that used abroad, this paper identifies the gaps between domestic equipment’s performance, intelligence level, and adaptability and those of equipment in European and American countries and also identifies bottlenecks, such as large regional variability, the lack of high-efficiency and low-loss separating devices, and the difficulty of breaking through key “chokepoint” technologies. On this basis, this paper proposes that the future development direction of domestic mechanized potato harvesting should focus on the synergistic development of multiple modes, on the research and development of flexible and low-loss separation equipment, and on the integration of intelligent technology; it also gives specific suggestions, aiming to provide references for the future progress of mechanized potato harvesting.

To address the inadequacies of mechanized potato-harvesting equipment on challenging terrains like hills, mountains, and small fields, a lightweight and simple self-propelled crawler potato combine harvester was developed based on the agronomic and harvesting requirements of potato cultivation. The machine consists of key components including a depth-limited soil-crushing device, an auxiliary feeding device, an excavation device, a rubber rod separation device, and a ton bag sorting device. It offers technical advantages such as a lightweight structure, auxiliary feeding and conveying, and manual assistance in sorting ton bags. The key components, such as the auxiliary feeding device, depth-limiting soil-crushing device, and rubber rod separation device, were analyzed theoretically to determine the relevant structures and parameters. Through initial harvesting performance tests, the separation screen line speed, vibration frequency, and device inclination angle were identified as the experimental factors. Evaluation indicators such as potato bruise rate, skin breakage rate, loss rate, and impurity content were chosen, and a three-factor, three-level Box–Behnken optimization test was conducted. The results indicated that with a separation screen line speed of 1 m/s, vibration frequency of 8 Hz, and device inclination angle of 30°, the potato damage rate during harvesting was 1.318%, the skin breakage rate was 1.825%, the loss rate was 2.815%, and the impurity rate was 2.736%. Field tests with the same parameters showed that the potato damage rate, skin breakage rate, loss rate, and impurity rate of the harvester were 1.357%, 1.853%, 2.86%, and 2.748%, respectively, meeting relevant industry technical standards. This research can serve as a reference for enhancing the harvesting performance of potato combine harvesters and ton bag sorting technology.

Stones in farmland soil affect the efficiency of agricultural mechanization and the efficient growth of crops. In order to solve the problems of traditional stone pickers, such as large soil disturbance, high soil content and low picking rate, this paper introduces the Archimedean curve with constant radial expansion characteristics into the design of the core working parts of the drum picker and designs a new type of drum stone picker. The key components such as spiral blades, rollers, and scrapers were theoretically analyzed, the structural parameters of the main components were determined, and the reliability of the spiral blades was checked using ANSYS Workbench software. Through the preliminary stone-picking performance test, the forward speed of the stone picker, the rotation speed of the drum, and the starting sliding angle of the spiral blade were determined as the test influencing factors. The picking rate and soil content of the stone picker were determined as the test indicators. The response surface test was carried out in the Design-Expert13.0 software. The results show that, when the forward speed of the stone picker is 0.726 m/s, the drum speed is 30 rpm, and the initial sliding angle of the spiral blade is 26.214°, the picking rate is 91.458% and the soil content is 3.513%. Field tests were carried out with the same parameters, and the picking rate was 91.42% and the soil content was 3.567%, with errors of 0.038% and 0.054% compared with the predicted values, indicating that the stone picker meets the field operation requirements. These research results can provide new ideas and technical paths for improving the performance of pickers and are of great value in promoting the development of advanced harvesting equipment and the efficient use of agricultural resources.