Journal of Researches in Mechanics of Agricultural Machinery

Journal of Researches in Mechanics of Agricultural Machinery

Performance Evaluation of a Potato Mini-Tuber Singulation Conveyor

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors
Orang Taki 1
Mohsen Heidarisoltanabadi 1
Abdollah Imanmehr 2
1 Associate professor, Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Isfahan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Isfahan, Iran
2 Assistant professor, Agricultural Engineering Research Department, Isfahan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Isfahan, Iran.
10.22034/jrmam.2026.15033.771
Abstract
Potato production plays an important role in ensuring food security in the country. One of the methods for cultivating and propagating potato tubers is the use of minitubers. In the country, approximately 30 million minitubers are produced annually, and efforts are made to classify them into different weight groups. However, since the weight of minitubers deviates significantly from the average, their buying and selling is done by count, and therefore accurate counting is particularly important. Manual counting is often time-consuming, costly, and prone to error.Furthermore, the mechanized counting of microtubers, whether by mechanical or electronic methods, requires the tubers to be precisely singulated and aligned at the end of a conveying path. However, very little research has been conducted on this aspect. In this study, the performance of a minituber singulating conveyor equipped with optical counting sensors was investigated. Since the optimal performance of this machine is influenced by factors including the transverse slope of the conveyor, the linear speed of the conveyor, and the input tuber feed rate, the effects of different levels of these factors were compared for two minituber size groups in a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with four replications. The proposed levels for the transverse slope of the conveyor were 15 and 18 degrees relative to the horizontal; for the linear speed of the conveyor, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 m/s; and for the input tuber feed rate, values of 2, 3, and 4 tubers per second were considered. The results of this experiment showed that the best conveyor performance is achieved by selecting an 18-degree angle for the transverse slope and a speed of 0.25 m/s for the belt."
Keywords
Evaluation
Minituber counting
Single-row conveyor
Singulation conveyor
Subjects
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