Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture - Fall 2019 Seminar Series:

Robotics in Digital Agriculture

Automation and Robotics in Specialty Crops

Manoj Karkee
Associate Professor, Biological Systems Engineering Department
Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems
Washington State University

Monday, September 9th, 2019

114 Gates Hall, Ithaca, NY
11:30 am Networking & Lunch
12:00 – 12:45 pm – Presentation and Live Stream:
https://cornell.zoom.us/j/776293354
12:45 – 1:00 pm - Q&A

Abstract:

Decreasing availability and increasing cost of farm labor is a critical challenge faced by
agricultural industry around the world. Robotics has played a key role in reducing labor use and
increasing productivity in farming. Modular automation and robotics technologies developed in
recent years, decreasing cost and increasing capabilities of sensing, control and automation
technologies such as UAVs, and increasing emphasis by governments around the world in
mechanizing and automating agriculture have created a conductive environment to develop
and adopt smart farming technologies for the benefit of agricultural industries around the
world including smaller, subsistence farming operations common in developing and
underdeveloped countries. In this presentation, the author will first discuss the importance of
precision and automated/robotic systems for the future of farming (Ag 4.0). He will then
summarize past efforts and current status of agricultural automation and robotics, particularly
for fruit crop production, followed by an introduction of the novel systems being developed in
his program. The technologies to be introduced include robotic fruit harvesting, fruit tree
pruning, and crop thinning. At the end, major challenges and opportunities in agricultural
robotics as well as potential future directions in research and development will be discussed.
Bio:

Dr. Manoj Karkee is an Associate Professor in the Biological Systems Engineering Department at
Washington State University (WSU). He was born and raised in eastern hills of Nepal. He
received his diploma in Civil Engineering and undergraduate in Computer Engineering from
Tribhuvan University, Nepal. His MS was in remote sensing and GIS from Asian Institute of
Technology, Thailand and his PhD was in Agricultural Engineering and Human Computer
Interaction from Iowa State University. Dr. Karkee leads a strong research program in the area
of sensing, machine vision and agricultural robotics at the WSU Center for Precision and
Automated Agricultural Systems. He has published widely in such journals as ‘Journal of Field
Robotics’, ‘Computers and Electronics in Agriculture’, and ‘Transactions of the ASABE’, and has
been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences and universities.
Dr. Karkee is currently serving as an elected chair for International Federation of Automatic
Control (IFAC) Technical Committee 8.1, Control in Agriculture, as an associate editor for
‘Transactions of the ASABE’, as a guest editor for ‘Robotics’, and Editorial Committee Member
of Information Processing in Agriculture. Dr. Karkee was recently recognized as ‘2019 Pioneer in
Artificial Intelligence and IoT’ by Connected World magazine and was featured as the ‘Western
Innovator’ by Capital Press.

Background on the Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture:

An interdisciplinary group of Cornell University faculty began meeting in early 2017 to

formulate an Initiative for Digital Agriculture (DA), believing that Cornell is uniquely equipped to
lead in this emerging arena that will benefit the public for generations. We define DA to mean
the application of computational and information technologies coupled with nanotechnology,
biology, systems engineering and economics to both the research and operational sides of
agriculture and food production. With approximately 100 faculty from 5 Cornell colleges
participating, we are collaborating with external stakeholders to shape and implement a
research agenda for DA that will build a pipeline of discovery and innovations for the next 10+
years. Please contact Tim Vanini at tv37@cornell.edu with any questions.