Sustaining Agriculture and Food Production with Robotics and AI

American farmers currently face numerous challenges, one of the largest being increasing uncertainty about the future availability of farm workers. Despite decades of research, there has been little commercial adoption of robots that can do physically strenuous tasks like pruning, thinning, and harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables. Why? Because biological systems such as orchards and vineyards are really challenging environments for robots. Much of the prior work has focused primarily on visual perception, often ignoring the complex physical interactions that occur when people manipulate plants. In this talk, I’ll discuss ongoing work at Oregon State University to create robots that use novel mechanical devices and sensors to manipulate plants. I’ll also present recent results from an industry-sponsored project to reduce the over-application of fertilizer. Finally, I’ll discuss how our work has expanded to include international collaborations with Europe and Asia as well as a new partnership with a nonprofit to develop assistive technologies to help farm workers.