Objective In order to avoid drinking water bucket discoloration or deterioration caused by direct exposure to the ultraviolet， water plants always require plastic bags to protect the bucket. The traditional manual bagging has low efficiency and heavy intensity of labor, therefore, a new automatic bagging equipment for drinking water buckets was designed. Methods The ordinary drinking water bucket packaging was taken as the research object, and the automatic bagging principle imitated the 5 steps of manual bagging process, including taking the bags, open the bags, lifting the buckets, bagging and sealing the opening. By analyzing the principle of manual bagging process, based on the reliability of bag opening by vacuum sucker and the feasibility of general manipulator movement, the automatic packaging equipment for drinking water bucket was designed using block-based design. The equipment was composed of automatic bag delivery device, bag opening manipulator and bucket grabbing manipulator. Results 3D model was built using Pro/Engineer software, the related parameters were determined and the designed packaging rate was 300 barrels per hour. Conclusion Equipment structure design for water bucket automatic bagging was realized, which was highly automatic, simple and economically feasible. This design could not only improve the filling efficiency of drinking water buckets, but also decrease the labor requirement of the water plants, which provides reference for drinking water bucket automatic packaging.