IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2023 - 8

F ROM THE GU E S T ED I T O R S
Embracing Robotics and Intelligent Machine
Systems for Smart Agricultural Applications
By Eldert van Henten , Carlos Montenegro, Marija Popovic, Stavros Vougioukas,
Alfred Daniel, and Guangjie Han
High tech to feed the world! This slogan
was launched some 10 years ago in
The Netherlands to direct research on
high tech for agricultural production. It
responded to an urgent concern about
the needs of a growing world population
for food, feed, fibers, and basic chemical
components. By the way, make no
mistake, agriculture does
not only provide food!
Anyway, the slogan represented
the vibrant optimism
about the potential
of technology in support
of this quest. And for
good reasons! Advances
in robotics and artificial
intelligence (AI) in the
recent past allowed us
to go beyond far-fetched
visions and speculations
and put these technologies
to the test on the fields,
in the greenhouses, in the
orchards, and in livestock
barns. Definitely,
this
trend is not limited to
The Netherlands. When
monitoring academic and professional
literature, the rapidly growing number of
publications in the past 10 years addressing
robotics and AI in the agricultural
context is clear proof of a worldwide trend.
Robotics and AI have been topics of
research in the agricultural domain for
some 40 to 50 years now, and one might
wonder why these technologies have
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2023.3322917
Date of current version: 12 December 2023
8
"
THE RAPIDLY
GROWING NUMBER
OF PUBLICATIONS
IN THE PAST 10
YEARS ADDRESSING
ROBOTICS AND AI IN
THE AGRICULTURAL
CONTEXT IS CLEAR
PROOF OF A
WORLDWIDE TREND.
„
not been widely adopted in practice.
Fair enough. A good deal of technology
is available and used in agricultural practice
today. But upon closer inspection,
this technology usually supports or
replaces the farmer and coworkers on
the less demanding tasks-demanding
in the sense of sensing, cognition, decision
making, and fast
and effective eye-hand
coordination when monitoring
and manipulating
the crop, fruits, and
flowers. The use of these
technologies commonly
correlates with a quite
well-structured environment
where the location,
shape, size, and
color of objects to be
manipulated are quite
clearly defined. Seeding,
planting, broad-acre
application of fertilizers,
and crop protection
chemicals are examples
of that existing category
of technologies. And for
sure, you will find robotic manipulators
in various less demanding applications
for good reasons.
More challenging conditions are
encountered in, for instance, safely driving
a tractor while monitoring the performance
of the implement, harvesting
fruits, pruning fruit trees, and monitoring
plants and cattle for water status,
diseases, or stress. No two plants are the
same, and no two cows are the same.
There is a lot of variation within crops
IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2023
and among crops. Occlusion is a common
issue in many more challenging
farming tasks. Then, parts of plants and
animals are partially visible. And don't
forget weather conditions. Lighting,
especially, still poses a serious challenge
for many automated systems. But to be
more specific, a bit of home gardening
will have shown you that harvesting
fruits and flowers is a demanding task.
Yet, in a split second, professional harvesters
assess the location and ripeness
of fruit and, seemingly without hesitation,
detach the ripe ones and leave the
others for a second harvest. Despite
many years of research in robotics and
AI, such farm operations are still the
realm where humans excel. Well, you
might argue in return that the milking
robot has been widely adopted and disproves
this argument. In a way, it does;
in a way, it does not. Have a closer look.
In the box where cows are automatically
milked, cows have a fixed position and
orientation. Technology makes sure that
cows cannot move much during milking.
Second, the herd population is commonly
adapted to the machine by selecting
cows for a uniform udder shape and size
as well as a regular location of the teats.
Still, without debate, this is the most profound
example of robotic and AI technology
in agriculture, and we can learn
a lot from its development not only in
terms of technology but also in terms
of, for instance, advancing technology
through the various stages of technology
readiness and also in terms of societal
and economic aspects of technology
adoption, training, education of farmers,
1070-9932/23©2023IEEE
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1623-9855
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2023
