Abstract: Pruning is an essential agricultural practice for orchards. Proper pruning can promote healthier growth and optimize fruit production throughout the orchard’s lifespan. Robot manipulators have been developed as an automated solution for this repetitive task, which typically requires seasonal labor with specialized skills. While previous research has primarily … [Read more...] about Automated Behavior Planning for Fruit Tree Pruning via Redundant Robot Manipulators: Addressing the Behavior Planning Challenge
Agricultural robots
Robotic Assessment of a Crop’s Need for Watering: Automating a Time-Consuming Task to Support Sustainable Agriculture
Agricultural robotics and automation technology plays an increasingly critical role across several crop production stages to improve sustainability (e.g., water use optimization). Robotics has been applied for remote and proximal sensing as well as physical sampling. The procedure of physical sampling and follow-on analysis of plant specimens, such as leaves or shoots, which is … [Read more...] about Robotic Assessment of a Crop’s Need for Watering: Automating a Time-Consuming Task to Support Sustainable Agriculture
Field Robot for High-Throughput and High-Resolution 3D Plant Phenotyping: Towards Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production
With the need to feed a growing world population, the efficiency of crop production is of paramount importance. To support breeding and field management, various characteristics of the plant phenotype need to be measured, a time-consuming process when performed manually. We present a robotic platform equipped with multiple laser and camera sensors for high-throughput, … [Read more...] about Field Robot for High-Throughput and High-Resolution 3D Plant Phenotyping: Towards Efficient and Sustainable Crop Production
Semiautonomous Precision Pruning of Upright Fruiting Offshoot Orchard Systems: An Integrated Approach
Dormant pruning is an important orchard activity for maintaining tree health and producing high-quality fruit. Due to decreasing worker availability, pruning is a prime candidate for robotics. However, pruning also represents a uniquely difficult problem, requiring robust systems for perception, pruning point determination, and manipulation that must operate under variable … [Read more...] about Semiautonomous Precision Pruning of Upright Fruiting Offshoot Orchard Systems: An Integrated Approach
