Abstract: A kind of self-propelled caterpillar sugarcane billet harvester was designed,to aim at harvesting sugarcane planted in hilly areas in China.The machine could complete the process of cutting cane topper,separating sugarcanes in different rows and lifting up the lodging situation sugarcanes,cutting cane roots,conveying canes,chopping canes into segments,eliminating trash from the billet canes,and gathering the canes in the collector at once,which is suitable for sugarcane harvesting in large slope,small spots and retail planting sugarcane areas.In this paper,the designs on overall structure,working principle,technical parameters and the hydraulic system were introduced,and the key components such as the root cutter,the conveyor,the chopper,and the caterpillar were elaborated with their design parameters.Field tests were conducted to measure the operation ability and stability.The results showed that the total loss rate was 2.38%,the permanent root breakage rate was 8.3%,the impurity rate was 6.2%,the pure working hour productivity was 0.12 hm~2 /h,and the fuel consumption rate was 150 kg/hm~2.In a word,the 4GQ-1C sugarcane harvester has good adaptive capacity and works well in hilly sugarcane planting areas,and all main parameters meet the design requirements.