IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2022 - 145

TC SPOTLIGHT
Agricultural Robotics and Automation
By Eldert J. van Henten, Amy Tabb, John Billingsley, Marija Popovic,
Mingcong Deng, and John Reid
A
gricultural production is a key
economic activity providing a
growing world population
with resources such as food,
fibers, fuels, and chemical basic com -
ponents. Yet, agriculture also plays
a crucial role in the depletion of re -
sources, including fresh water, fossil
fuels, and nutrients (e.g., phosphate),
and has a significant impact on our
living environment through emissions
and the use of chemicals. Despite a
growing world population, labor
participation in agricultural production
is declining. Technology has been
instrumental in the very successful
development of agriculture throughout
the centuries and will play a crucial role
in the transition to more sustainable
agrifood production in the years that
lie ahead of us.
It is expected that technologies, such
as artificial intelligence, data, and robotics,
will be leading this transition. During
this transition, it is critically
important to support agrifood production
with novel technologies. Covering
the value chain from breeding, through
on-farm production, to postharvest
storage, logistics, packaging, and food
processing, the agrifood production
network is an ecosystem providing agrifood
products and services. Besides
food, other off-farm production activities
do exist, including the harvesting of
wild food; fisheries; indoor farming,
both large-scale commercial and home
growing; forestry; and, last but not least,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2022.3213136
Date of current version: 2 December 2022
urban landscaping and maintenance,
where robot technologies can and will
be applied, as well.
A search in Scopus for documents
published between 1981 and 2021 containing
the words " agricultural robot, "
" agricultural robotics, " " robots in agriculture, "
and " robotics in agriculture "
reveals the rapidly increasing interest
for robotics and automation in the context
of the agrifood application domain
(Figure 1). Clearly, the number of documents
covering individual aspects of
agricultural robotics, such as sensing
and grasping, significantly exceeds the
numbers shown in this graph.
Challenges
When reviewing technology used in
agriculture, it can be concluded that a
lot of technology is already available to
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
Year
Figure 1. The number of articles identified in Scopus (1981-2021) in a query using the
words " agricultural robot, " " agricultural robotics, " " robots in agriculture, " and " robotics
in agriculture " anywhere in the text. The graph reveals the rapidly increasing interest in
this field of robotics.
DECEMBER 2022 * IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE *
145
support and even replace human labor
[1], [2].The majority of technologies
being used consists
of mainly
mechanical en -
gineering so -
lutions. These
solutions have a
relatively limited
flexibility
t o ad a p t t o
changes in crops
and pro duction
environments
and are generally
incapable
of site-specific
implementation
for individual
plant and animal operations. This is
due to limited sensing, perception,
Agricultural
production is a key
economic activity
providing a growing
world population
with resources such
as food, fibers,
fuels, and chemical
basic components.
Number of Documents
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
2018
2020
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2022
