IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2022 - 146

decision-making, and manipulation
capabilities. Most mechanized and automated
operations in agriculture still
strongly rely on human supervision.
The activities in agricultural production
where humans are still leading
are characterized by significant variations
in shape, size, color, the texture
of target objects, the environment, the
position and orientation of target
objects in the environment, and significant
variations in environmental conditions,
such as light intensity, rain,
dust, and dirt.
Last but not least,
humans are ca -
pable of switching
be twe en
tasks effectively,
which still is a
huge challenge
for a machine.
What makes
humans so flexible
and capable
in dealing with
complexity and
variation? First,
active perception
allows humans
to adapt their
observations to
the conditions
active perception and planning and
control of their arms and hands.
Third, humans employ very effective
eye-hand coordination, i.e., the planning
and control of their arms and
hands for the object to be manipulated.
Finally, humans are equipped
with hands; hands are gripping and
manipulation systems that are compliant
and very effective in dealing with
objects with widely differing shapes
and sizes and with differing material
properties ranging from solid to soft
and deformable.
To deal with the aforementioned
AgRA is a forum
where academic
and industrial
scientists and
engineers meet
to advance the
state of the art in
sensing, perception,
planning, mobility,
manipulation, and
management.
at hand and effect ively identify
location, orientation, and material
properties of objects in complex environments
where objects are only partially
visible. Second, humans learn
from previous experiences and build a
world model that they use to reason
about the environment and guide their
conditions in the agrifood domain in a
robust way, robot technology needs to
be equipped with more advanced capabilities
in (active) perception, world
modeling, planning and control, and
gripping and manipulation, still a huge
scientific and engineering challenge,
indeed. State-of-the-art progress in
research and future challenges is documented
in a wide range of review
papers and book chapters addressing
agriculture in general [1], [3], [4], [5]
and specific application domains,
including phenotyping [6], [7], [8] arable
farming [9], livestock farming [10],
greenhouse horticulture [2], orchard
management [11], forestry [12], and
food processing [13]. Review papers
also address specific technologies in
the context of agricultural robotics,
such as computer vision [14], [15],
active perception [16], unmanned aerial
vehicle technologies [17], [18], coverage
path planning in arable farming
[19], and grasping and soft grasping
[20], [21]. Some illustrative examples
of agrifood robotics are documented
in Figure 2.
Technical Committee on
Agricultural Robotics and
Automation
The mission of the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society Technical Committee
(TC) on Agricultural Robotics and
Automation (AgRA) is to promote
research, development, innovation, and
standardization in robotics and automation
to enable safe, efficient, sustainable,
and economical agricultural production.
AgRA is a forum where academic
and industrial scientists and engineers
meet to advance the state of the art in
sensing, perception, planning, mobility,
manipulation, and management technologies
deployed in various stages of
the agrifood production chain, ranging
from breeding through farming to postharvest
processing.
Membership in the TC is open to all
interested in contributing to the exciting
field of agricultural robotics and
automation. More information about
the TC can be found at the website
http://ieeeagra.com and by contacting
one of the cochairs directly. The TC
moderates a mailing list among its
members. Membership numbers largely
followed a growing trend similar to that
shown in Figure 1, from 10 in 1997 to
767 in 2022. On a regular basis, a newsletter
is distributed among the TC
members. As another communication
channel, a Twitter account was created
for the TC, at @AgRoboticsTC. People
interested in the TC can contact us
through the Twitter account via direct
message and ask questions and join,
and they can follow and get updates
similar to what is provided by the
newsletter and website.
Although on a less regular basis than
(a)
(b)
Figure 2. Agrifood robotics: (a) a prototype broccoli harvester being tested in the United
States and (b) a prototype sweet pepper harvester developed in the European Unionfunded
project Sweeper.
146 * IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE * DECEMBER 2022
in past times, the TC organizes webinars,
where members present their
work. In 2021, Dr. Ali Leylavi-Shoustari,
Wageningen University, The Netherlands,
presented a webinar, " Soft
Agro-Food Robotics. " Later that year,
Dr. Marija Popovic, University of Bonn,
Germany, presented " Intelligent Decision-Making
and Autonomy for Agricultural
Robots. " Members regularly

http://www.ieeeagra.com

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2022

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