Recent Advances in Agricultural Robotics

International workshop collocated with the 13th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS-13).

The rapidly growing population of our planet brings new challenges for global food security. To meet the future demand for more, cheaper and better quality food, new and innovative solutions and improvements to the current agricultural practices are required. Agricultural robotics is one of the promising technological solutions for addressing these problems, as demonstrated by recent examples of robots performing autonomously different agricultural tasks. For example, agricultural robots can autonomously scout and monitor soil and crop properties, apply optimised spraying operations on individual plants, harvest fruit in orchards, and in addition perform all these operations for 24h a day. Autonomous mechanical weeders eliminate the need for herbicides and therefore can be used for the production of affordable, safer food. Teams of small specialised agricultural robots compared to the currently used heavy machinery can result in lower soil compaction leading to energy savings but also in more robust systems in the case of technical failures. The number of potential new applications is enormous. Agricultural robotics highlights also several technical challenges interesting for the academic community due to the large scale outdoor environments, seasonal and regional variations but also general complexity of agricultural operations.

Scope

The aim of this workshop is to bring together both academic and industrial communities to discuss recent advances in robotic applications for agriculture and horticulture. The proposed workshop will provide a forum to present the state-of-the-art technical solutions in agricultural robotics and new exciting robotics platforms but also to encourage future collaborations between the participants. Possible relevant topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Sensing, planning and control for agricultural/horticultural robots;
  • Adaptation to seasonal changes and exploitation of long-term autonomy;
  • Autonomous augmentations to existing agricultural machinery;
  • Robotic platforms for soil and crop scouting, including UAVs;
  • Effectors and manipulators for agriculture/horticulture;
  • Agricultural robots for soil preparation, seeding, crop protection and harvest; and,
  • Multi-robot systems for agriculture/horticulture.

Please refer to Call for Papers for more details about the submission process.

The workshop is supported by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics & Automation and is a continuation of previous agricultural robotics events held as part of IROS2012 and ICRA2008 conferences.

Important dates

  • Paper submission deadline: 12th of May
  • Notification of acceptance: 6th of June
  • Final manuscript submission: 27th of June
  • Workshop: 18th of July