As manual rubber tapping is a laborintensive work with high technical requirement and low work efficiency, it is important to realize automatic rubber tapping. A threecoordinate linkage rubber tapping device was designed and tested, and a motion path planning method based on short tapping cut was proposed. The tapping device was composed of three main modules, which were threecoordinate platform (positioning accuracy of single axis was ±0.05mm), a vibrating cutter and a laser ranging sensor (measurement accuracy was 0.07mm). In order to control cutting depth, laser ranging was used to measure the distance between the knifepoint of vibrating cutter and the reference surface curved by skilled tapper. Based on the measurement, a spatial path was planned for threecoordinate platform simultaneously. During rubber tapping, vibrating knife cut off the bark of rubber tree continuously through the path by controlling threecoordinate platform. Therefore, the motion path planning method of the tapping device could be summarized as: detecting the start point and inclination of short tapping cut through a rectangle motion path; measuring the cutting depth through a discrete motion path; planning cutting path fused the information of tapping cut and cutting depth. Furthermore, the number of control points to approximate the short tapping cut was optimized. In the Xdirection of the tapping motion coordinate system, the length of short tapping cut was intercepted as 80mm, and the reasonable number of control points was calculated as 17. Moreover, the tapping device was tested on real rubber tree trunk, and the working performance was evaluated by measuring cutting depth and bark consumption. Test results showed that the cutting depth was well controlled with no damage on rubber tree and the error of bark consumption was about 5%, which could meet the requirements of natural rubber tapping requirement.