Design of self-propelled inverted-umbrella type fruit collecting machine

Abstract. In recent years, China has gradually become one of the largest fruit production and export countries in the world, and the continuous increase of fruit production requires higher harvesting efficiency. Due to the characteristics of dense planting of fruit trees and poor maneuverability of collection machinery, the main method of fruit collection in China is manual collection. In view of the problems of low collection efficiency, high cost and easy damage of fruits, combined with small working space of collection machinery in China, a self-propelled inverted-umbrella type fruit collecting machine was introduced in this paper, which has the characteristics of large collection area when unfolded and small volume when folded. The main structure of the collecting device includes a mobile platform and a collecting part. The transmission mode of the collecting part is rack and pinion. The key components were designed and simulated to ensure the structural strength. The results verify the feasibility of the designed collecting machine to assist the hand-held harvester for harvesting tree fruits.