Sixty years after making their debut in industrial environments, robots are making
their way into our everyday life. Farmers have benefited for some time from self-guided
machinery including combines and harvesters. More recently, multi-purpose autonomous
vehicles have started to be deployed in orchards, groves, nurseries, and other agricultural
environments to automate or augment operations such as pruning, thinning, harvesting,
mowing, and spraying. Successful commercialization of such vehicles will depend largely
on the robotics community overcoming technological, socioeconomic, and regulatory
barriers to deployment and adoption. The chairs of the Robotics and Automation Society
Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics & Automation invite academic and industrial
robotics and agricultural researchers, engineers, practitioners, and students to
come together and create a future where robots enable safe, efficient, and affordable
food production.
The objectives of the workshop are to provide a forum for researchers in agricultural
robotics to survey the state-of-the-art in the field, discuss new ideas, and create
a roadmap of research opportunities and field applications, and convene experts and
beginners, scientists and students, and academics and industry personnel in an informal
setting to foster cross-country collaboration networks.
The target audience includes: academic and industrial researchers, engineers, practitioners,
and students, either currently working in agricultural robotics or interested in
learning more about this exciting and growing field.
