Agronomy Webinar | Development of Fruit Picking Robots
Welcome from the Chair
1st Agronomy Webinar
Development of Fruit Picking Robots
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce the Webinar of development of fruit picking robots on Agronomy, which will take place on 4 October 2022. The webinar format is designed to facilitate the dissemination and discussion of advances in agronomy research and innovation in a post-pandemic environment, where travelling is likely to remain a challenge for many of us.
With the rapid increase in the world population, agriculture first moved on from manual operation to mechanization and is now moving toward the implementation of automated/robotic field operations to meet the growing demand for food. However, in contrast to industrial operations, agricultural field operations are complex, unstructured, ill defined, and subject to a high degree of variation in illumination, atmospheric, and landscape conditions in addition to the dynamic biological nature of both field and specialty crops. These challenges make it extremely difficult to implement automated/robotic solutions in agricultural field operations. However, with the advancements in many technological frontiers such as smart sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), machine vision, artificial intelligence, smart decision support systems, and advanced control system, the use of automated/robotic operations in agriculture is becoming a reality.
The programme of this Webinar of development of fruit picking robots on Agronomy will include 2 special presentations, which focus on important area of agronomy where research and innovation is essential to address the challenges described above (see list of presentations below). In addition to presentations, we will organize a discussion in each presentation to allow results to be presented and future challenges and research needs to be discussed:
1. Design considerations for automated mango harvest（Prof. Kerry Walsh）
2. Monash Apple Retrieving System (MARS)（A/Prof. Chao Chen）
We warmly invite our colleagues from across the world to be part of this exciting event.
Chao Chen, Chair of Webinar of development of fruit picking robots, Associate Professor, Monash University
Date: 4 October 2022
Time: 10:00am CEST | 4:00am EDT | 4:00pm CST Asia
Webinar ID: 853 6321 7446
Webinar Secretariat: agronomy.webinar@mdpi.com
Chair
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Monash University, Australia
A/Prof Chao Chen received Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1996, and Master and Ph.D. Degrees in Robotics at McGill University in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He received FQRNT Post-Doctorate Fellowship and worked at University of Toronto from 2006 to 2007. A/Prof Chen joined Monash University in 2007 and established the Laboratory of Motion Generation and Analysis, with the goal to improve the quality of life of people by robotic technology. His research has been driving innovation in the areas of manufacturing robotics, agricultural robotics, medical robotics, and space robotics. His publications received the Award of “Editor’s Choice Article” by Sensors and Superior Paper Award by COMPAG. A/Prof Chen is the Supervisor of Monash Nova Rover Team, which achieved the Second Place among 180 teams in the University Rover Challenge in Mars Desert Research Station in Utah in 2022.
Invited Speakers
Institute for Future Farming Systems, Central Queensland University, Australia
Kerry Walsh trained as a plant physiologist at Queensland University Australia and Queens University Canada but his career has centered to the development of instrumentation relevant to horticultural management. This has included on pack-line and in orchard portable near infrared spectroscopy for assessment of fruit internal quality and LoRA based temperature sensors for automated heat unit monitoring. More recently he has led a research group in the development of a machine vision system for use in flower and fruit load estimation, with re-purposing of this technology into an autoharvesting platform targeted to mango.
Webinar Content
Program
|
Speaker/Presentation |
Time in CEST |
|
Chair Dr. Chao Chen Chair Introduction + Journal Introduction |
10:00 - 10:15 am |
|
Professor Kerry Walsh Design considerations for automated mango harvest |
10:15 - 10:35 am |
|
Dr. Chao Chen Monash Apple Retrieving System (MARS) |
10:35 - 10:55 am |
|
Q&A |
10:55 - 11:10 am |
|
Closing of Webinar Chair Dr. Chao Chen |
11:10 - 11:15 am |
Relevant SI
Guest Editors: Dr. Chao Chen, Dr. Satoru Sakai, Dr. Yaqoob Majeed & Prof. Dr. Longsheng Fu
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 February 2023
Relevant Topic
Grand Challenges of Advanced Technologies in Sustainable Agriculture 4.0: Future Farming, Harvesting and PreservationSponsors and Partners
Organizers
