IEEE Robotics and Automation's Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics

While robots have traditionally been associated with manufacturing or science fiction, robotic devices are also of great use in agricultural applications. To date these robotic, or mechatronic devices have predominantly been semi-autonomous systems that assist a human with difficult or tedious operations, however advances in technology and expectation mean that fully-autonomous robotic devices may soon be in use within many agricultural environments. The economic demands of reducing tariff protection for first world farmers, shortages of skilled farm labour in agricultural regions, food and fibre requirements of a growing world population, and increasingly stringent standards for agricultural production, will continue to drive the commercial need for these technologies and ensure this becomes an increasingly exciting field of endeavour. The Agricultural Robotics Committee seeks to connect researchers and industry groups working within this field, and where applicable to identify emerging standards and opportunities.

The essential 'robotic' blending of intelligent sensing with mechanical actuation can be found in vision-guided tractors, product grading systems, planters and harvesters, applicators for fertilisers and pest control. Robot manipulators can divide plant material for micropropagation in sterile conditions, others can skin fruit for canning. All the ingredients of robotics are there. Sensing is important in all aspects. These range from simple transducers to measure actuator positions to vision for guidance and grading, time-series analysis of cutter vibration, flow rates for yield monitoring and GPS for precision agriculture - and many more which have not yet been thought of. Actuation, software for intelligent control, kinematics and communication all have a part to play in this rapidly growing art. This committee works to provide a forum for those who are balanced between the worlds of agriculture and mechatronics. It supports activities such as organizing technical sessions and workshops and will increase interaction and collaboration among researchers and developers in various areas supported by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society.

• (Dec 2008) Call for participation: Workshop on Agricultural Robotics: Autonomous Agriculture, held in conjunction with the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 12-17 May 2009, Kobe, Japan.

• Call for Paper: Organised Session on Agricultural Robotics at M2VIP 2008: the 15th International Conference on Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice 2008, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand, 2 - 4 December 2008. For information, please contact John Billingsley (billings at usq dot edu dot au). Deadline of abstract submission: 1 June 2008.
• Update on the IEEE RAS Workshop on Agricultural Robotics at ICRA 2008. A detailed schedule can be found here.
• Announcing the Special issue of JFR (Journal of Field Robotics) on Agricultural Robotics. Deadline of submission is July 25, 2008. Guest Editors: John Billingsley, John Reid, Denny Oetomo. For more information, go to the Call for Paper webpage.
  
• The IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics is organising a workshop titled "Towards autonomous agriculture of tomorrow" at ICRA 2008, to be held in Pasadena, California, on May 19-23, 2008. Those interested in presenting at the workshop, please contact the co-chairs. If you are interested in attending the workshop, please indicate so when registering for the conference.
  

The technical committee is initiating an effort to compile a list of institutions and organisations working on the area of agricultural robotics . This list will serve as a common point to resources in agricultural robotics available in the community. Send us an email to be included in the list!!

The technical committee welcomes everyone, from the industries or research, to participate and contribute to the technical committee. Get in touch with us through email with your name, affiliation, phone and fax numbers, email address, and area of interest!!

Founding date: 1 August 1997
Member count: 25 active representatives
Committee Chairs:

Chair: John Billingsley, University of Southern Queensland.
Co-chair: Denny Oetomo, The University of Melbourne.