Design and Development of Sweet Potato Harvester with Leaf Topper

Abstract

India is the 6th largest country in the production of the Sweet Potato as per the data found from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The harvesting of sweet potato manually is very time consuming, costly and full of drudgery. Before digging out the sweet potato it is required to cut the vines which is time consuming. Due to labour scarcity in the top Sweet Potato growing states the harvesting is not completed on time which is a serious issue. To overcome this problem related to the sweet potato harvesting and post harvesting processes the mechanization of the harvesting process is required to be done. The main objective of the project is to design and develop a tractor mounted sweet potato harvester machine along with leaf cutter. Both the process i.e. sweet potato digging with Leaf cutting are combined in the same machine in successive operations. The new model can be used in various locations irrespective of soil condition efficiently. An initial survey of sweet potato farm field is done followed by literature review, design concept generation, designing of various parts of machine, design modification as per field test. The basic design model will be prepared in 3D CAD software.