In order to realize the design innovation of harvesting equipment and the simulation test of the machine operation behavior and performance, the corn harvesting equipment was taken as an example, the 3D simulation model of harvesting equipment was built by Unity3D virtual platform. In order to simulate the deformation of the plant, according to the rheological properties, the plant model was constructed by connecting multiple cylinders with virtual springs and virtual walls. Then, establishment of behavioral models achieved interaction between harvesting equipment and plants. Finally, the harvesting simulation platform was used to verify the harvesting simulation test under different conditions, including the state change test of the plant under wind and rain, the harvesting behavior observation test of the harvesting process and the harvesting performance test of harvesting equipment with the traveling speed and planting density as factors. The result was that the fruit loss rate was decreased rapidly with the increase of speed, but the rate was decreased slowly when the speed exceeded 0.385m/s. At the same time, the higher the planting density was, the slower the fruit loss rate was decreased. Further analysis of variance showed that both the traveling speed and the planting density had significant effects on the harvesting performance of the harvesting equipment (P<0.01), which showed that the simulation platform can effectively simulate the harvesting situation and evaluate the performance of the harvesting equipment.