Design and Testing of a Self-Propelled Dandelion Seed Harvester

At present, there are few harvesters for dandelion ( Taraxacum mongolicum ) seeds, which limits the large-area planting of dandelion. Furthermore, manual harvesting is characterized by huge labor intensity, low efficiency, and high costs. Combining the material characteristics of dandelion plants and seeds with agronomic requirements for harvesting dandelion seeds, a self-propelled dandelion seed harvester was designed. The harvester is mainly composed of collection devices, separation devices, transmission devices, and a rack. It can facilitate seed collection from plants, seed transportation, and seed–pappus separation in one operation. The collection and separation processes of dandelion seeds were studied to ascertain the main factors that affect the collection rate. Then, the collection and separation devices were designed, and their parameters were analyzed. Taking the forward speed, wind velocity of blowers, and rate of rotation of the drum as test factors and the collection rate as the evaluation index, quadratic regression orthogonal rotating field tests were performed. In this way, the optimal combination of operation parameters was determined: the collection rate is optimal when the forward speed is 0.8 m·s −1 , the air velocity from the blowers is 1.63 m·s −1 , and the rate of rotation of the drum is 419 rpm. Field test results showed that a favorable harvesting effect was achieved after operation of the harvester, and only small amounts of dandelion seeds remained unharvested. Under the optimal parameter combination, the collection rate reached 89.1%, which could meet requirements for practical field harvesting of dandelion seeds. The test results satisfy the design requirement.