Wire mesh wheel has good trafficability on soft and clammy terrain; however, there were few studies on traction trafficability of wire mesh wheel on dry sand soil. The lightweight wheelssoil testing system was developed. The wheel sinkage, driving torque, drawbar pull and traction efficiency were adopted as testing indexes, and the tests on tractive trafficability of wire mesh wheel and cylindrical wheel were conducted under soft and natural soil state. The apparent sinkage of wire mesh wheel was obtained based on rut noncontact measurement. Results indicated that the real sinkages of wire mesh wheel were ranged from 13.1mm to 26.3mm (soft state) and from 8.1mm to 18.7mm (natural state), compared with those of the cylindrical wheel, the average increasing rate were 264% (soft state) and 22.7% (natural state), respectively. The apparent sinkage of wire mesh wheel was decreased with the increase of slip ratio, while the apparent sinkage of cylindrical wheel was increased firstly and then decreased. As the increase of slip ratio, both the driving torque and drawbar pull were increased, and traction efficiency was increased firstly and then decreased. The maximum driving torques of wire mesh wheel were 3.18N·m(soft state) and 3.76N·m (natural state). The driving torque of cylindrical wheel was larger than that of wire mesh wheel. The maximum drawbar pulls of wire mesh wheel were up to 8.46N (soft state) and 9.9N (natural state), the drawbar pull under natural soil state was increased by 16.7% than that on the soft soil state. The driving torque increasing ratio of cylindrical wheel was 45.2%, and the increasing average ratio was 32.3% for drawbar pull, compared with that of wire mesh wheel. The traction efficiency driving torque of wire mesh wheel was obviously larger than that of cylindrical wheel. The traction efficiency under natural soil state was increased by 17.9% than that on the soft soil state. The test conclusions indicated that the trafficability of wire mesh wheel was better than that of cylindrical wheel on dry sand soil, when comprehensively considered the effect of wheel sinkage and traction efficiency. The research results provided technical methods and basic data for development of lightweight vehicles, ground testing and traction trafficability assessment of wheel.