4 Universities Receive USDA Grants for Robotics in Agriculture
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture announced $3 million in grants for universities to advance cooperative robots in production agriculture.
The four grants are part of the National Robotics Initiative in which NIFA focuses on research that improves food production, processing and distribution.
“We are on the cusp of seeing incredible advancement in the use of robotics and sensors supporting agriculture in this country, says Sonny Ramaswamy, NIFA director. “These technologies, which are components of the Internet of agricultural things, have the ability to make agriculture production more efficient, saving time and money — benefits that can be passed from producers to consumers.”
Georgia Tech University received over $900,000 to develop autonomous robots that will collect leaves and soil samples for integrated crop and pest management systems.
The University of Illinois, Urbana, received over $500,000 to build a framework for cooperative networks of human operators and robotic mobile platforms that will work well in variable terrain and soil conditions and allow interchangeability of tools and crops.
Carnegie Mellon University received over $550,000 to develop an approach to tracking agricultural workers to facilitate the safe integration of robotic equipment.
Finally, Washington State University received over $1 million to advance technologies in robot-human and robot-environment interfaces for bin management of tree fruit orchards.
The robotics initiative is a federal research partnership that includes NIFA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA and the Department of Defense.
homepage photo: Georgia Tech University
