An automated data acquisition system for the impact characteristics experiments of agricultural materials was developed. An accelerometer, a force sensor and a high-performance DAS card PCL-1800 were interfaced with a microcomputer for this purpose. The software of the data acquisition was developed on the Advantech's Genie, which is a Windows-based data acquisition, control, analysis and presentation development software package. The post-trigger mode for A/D conversion start and DMA data transfer were applicable for the high-speed data acquisition of the impact characteristics of agricultural materials. Performance of the data acquisition system was demonstrated by using it in the experiments of impact characteristics of pears.