agriculture robotics

Farmers will need to feed an estimated 9.8 billion people worldwide by 2050, and to help in that effort, Oregon State University researchers are trying to expand the use of robots in agriculture.  Joe Davidson, Assistant Professor of Robotics, said nearly all fruit is harvested by humans because robots don’t operate efficiently in unstructured environments.   "Not o...

Researchers at the University of Idaho’s are working with a Kirkland, WA-based company to develop a robot that can weed farmland.  Jae Hyeon Ryu, an associate professor with U of I’s Department of Soil and Water Systems, said the robot was conceptualized to help farmers combat a dwindling workforce of humans.   "Farmers are...

Automation has been integrated into almost all aspects of our lives, and dairy farms are no different. In the last five to ten years, there’s been a huge increase in farmers adopting automated milking systems, said Courtney Halbach, Outreach Specialist with The Dairyland Initiative “Part of the reasons behind that is because they want to improve labor efficiency as well as milk production. So, we

Earlier this summer, the USDA announced a nearly $1 million grant for Washington State University to study the feasibility of robotic crop pollinators, which could help the tree fruit industry as bee colony collapse continues to be reported nationwide ...

Washington State University scientists working on developing robotic crop pollination technology recently received a nearly $1 million grant from the USDA. Associate professor in WSU’s Department of Biological Systems Engineering Manoj Karkee said they started looking at the feasibility of this technology because of growing concerns and needs reported by those in the tree fruit industry and othe

Turning beef cattle in to cuts of beef takes a lot of hands-on labor, and events of late have some people asking if robotics can be used more in meat plants? "Now part of becoming a university professor I was the research manager for Smithfield Foods, and we tested a lot of that type of technology," according to Ty Lawrence a professor at West Texas A&M. H ...

Larry Stap is a 4th generation dairy farmer, working on the same property established by his great grandfather.  But things have changed incredibly since 1910.  Stap has joined a growing number of dairy farmers that have turned to robotic milkers to meet his employment needs, as well as the needs of the herd.  Stap sa...

Earlier this month, Washington State University announced a partnership with Australia’s University of Technology Sydney creating the new Joint Center for Agricultural Robotics.  This is the first collaboration of it’s kind for WSU’s Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems.  WSU’s Manoj Karkee s...