A rotary contour peeling device consisting of a clamping rotary and reciprocating contour cutting was designed to solve the problem of ineffective mechanical peeling and the reliance on manual labor in peeling the roots of lotus. A theoretical analysis was conducted on the key components of the device and their relationship with the rotary speed. The radius of the arc peeling blade edge， the shape of the depth-limited support block， the length of the cutter arm pendulum， and the ratio of the rotary speed of the roots of lotus to the screw of the stepper motor was determined to be 7 mm， a semi-ellipsoidal cylinder， 85 mm and ranged from 0.51 to 1.03， respectively. Elian No. 5 was used to conduct a Box-Behnken response surface with the uniformity of peeling and the loss rate of peeling as indexes and the rotary speed of lotus root and stepper motor， and the diameter of torsion spring as factors. The optimal combination of parameters was determined to be a rotary speed of lotus root of 108 r/min， a rotary speed of stepper motor of 74 r/min， and a diameter of torsion spring of 1.6 mm. A verification experiment was conducted under these conditions， resulting in a removal rate of lotus root of ≥88.75% and a loss rate of peeling of ≤12.36%. It will provide a reference for improving the design of peeling machinery for roots of lotus.