U.S. National Institute of Food and Agriculture announce $3 million in grants

Four universities will use funding to advance use of robots in agriculture

By Diego Flammini, Farms.com

Robotics technology initiatives at Georgia Tech, University of Illinois, Carnegie Mellon University, and Washington State University will share $3 million in federal monies to develop the newest technology of robots able to work alongside people involved in production agriculture.

“We are on the cusp of seeing incredible advancement in the use of robotics and sensors supporting agriculture in this country,” said Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. “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
The university will receive $900,498 of federal funding to research robotic technology that can independently collect soil samples and leaves for use in integrated crop and pest management systems.

University of Illinois
With their $532,607 of the money, their major initiative is for building a framework for cooperative networks involving robots and humans in hopes they can sustain high performance in ever-changing environments and the use of resources.

Carnegie Mellon University
The Pittsburgh based university will get $556,726 of the federal grant funding to put towards developing a way of detecting people in agricultural settings; creating safer and more effective working spaces and implementation of robotic equipment.

Washington State University
Receiving the lion’s share of the funding at $1,010,169, they’ll focus on creating a technology allowing for human-robot and robot-robot interaction. This technology will be used to develop a bin-management system for tree fruit orchards.