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Highlights

Potatoes of different mass had significantly different moving times and trajectories during unloading.

Abstract. Belt conveyors are one of the main transport methods in potato sorting equipment. Generally, potatoes are detected and sorted while being discharged from the end of the loading conveyor. Therefore, the moving time and trajectory of potatoes are critical to determining the detection and sorting positions. In this study, the detection and sorting locations were optimized by investigating the influence of different mass levels of potatoes on their moving time and trajectories at different initial speeds by using a high-speed camera. In addition, a dynamic simulation model of potato movement was established using ADAMS software for further comparison. It was found that the potato trajectories and moving times were significantly influenced by the potato mass levels in a practical experiment. At the same initial speed, the moving time and trajectory length increased with the increase in mass level. Calculation methods for the optimal size and position of the rod ejectors and the unloading conveyor are proposed. When the initial speed was 1 m s-1, the length of the rod ejectors was 218.77 mm with a falling height of 250 mm, and the vertical and horizontal distances between the loading and unloading conveyors were 450 and 216.7 mm, respectively. Finally, a sorting experiment was performed to verify the design, and a classification accuracy of 98.95% and damage rate of 1.26% were obtained. This study provides a theoretical reference for the optimization design of belt-fed potato sorters.