WSU Partners With Australian University To Focus On Ag Robotics

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 said this joint effort will allow researchers to address one of the biggest questions facing farming: man power.

The two will focus on robotics that can help commercial growers, whether in the drylands, tree fruit or others harvest their goods despite a shrinking workforce.  When it comes to tree fruit, which Karkee said holds some of the greatest challenges, this partnership is beneficial because of the cyclical nature of weather.

“We can test our robotic harvester here in Washington in September and October time frame, and then we don’t have to wait until next September/October.  We can go down to Australia or have our collaborators there, validate our systems in March and April because that’s when they’ll be harvesting their apples.”

From a technology perspective, Karkee said this gives researchers the entire spectrum of what they need to be successful in developing robotic technologies.

“These problems and challenges are very multifaceted in nature and no single person or single group in my option, are entirely able to solve these challenges, and that’s why this kind of partnership is going to be more and more important.”

WSU officials add the collaborative work has already begun.

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