The beans harvesting system has been optimized by improving the mechanisms and the machines used. The objectives of the optimization works have been studied to increase the performance, efficiency and safety of the machines and to get better product quality. The objective of this work was to evaluate the operational performance of a tractor-harvester system for beans. The work was done using an automatic data acquisition system to acquire the torque and rotational velocity of the power take-off (PTO) and the system velocity. The processing capacity and the loss values were determined. The largest torque requirement, at 7 Hz PTO conditions, was 731 Nm, and the largest torque requirement, at the 9 Hz PTO conditions, was 907 Nm. The tractor-harvester system for beans showed, during field tests, a mean processing capacity of 0.85 kg s-1 for a production field condition of 0.22 kg m-2. The product was harvested at 13.6% moisture basis at a no-till area. At these conditions, it was found a total loss of 11.15%.
data acquisition; LabVIEW; mechanization
