Research of a Logging Harvester in Plantation

With the mature stage of the fast-growing plantation in China, the traditional working procedure can not meet with the need of the large-scale clear-cutting. So, a logging harvester which can be operated by hand or automation is developed. The ZL-50 wheeled loader is adopted as its walking mechanism and a manipulator with 9 degrees of freedom, a three-dimensional laser-scanner and a RBF neural network controller are equipped. The multifunctional logging harvester is an intelligent equipment, which has many functions such as felling, limbing, measuring and cross-sawing. The main technical parameters of the harvester are as follows: the operating range is 4-10.5m,the breast diameter of the standing tree which can be felled is 8-26cm. The practical test shows that the harvester not only can work safely and reliably, but also can greatly improve the work efficiency, which is about 30-35 times than that of manual felling, limbing and bucking.