Agri-station for automation and growth optimisation

Agriculture needs robotics to support low-cost high-quality production, to guarantee environmental sustainability and support a shrinking workforce. Current Robotics is not up to the task yet. The aim of this project is to build an experimental station to support research in this direction, enabling case studies at the interface between sensing, actuation, and system-level optimization in agriculture.

The indoor agri-station will be to grow plants/vegetables in a semi-controlled automated environment. Within a low-cost setting, the station will support indoor growth through artificial lights and automated irrigation/ventilation. It will be equipped with cameras and other sensors for data acquisition, validation, and feedback control, to support system analysis via image processing, safe human/machine collaboration, and computer-assisted decision-making. Automation will be delivered through in-house prototyped robot manipulators (cartesian/anthropomorphic) and small autonomous robots agents, to support studies in dextrous manipulation, safe interaction with people and robot-assistance, and multi-agent cooperation.

The project aim is to enable integration of sensing and robot manipulation in agriculture, and to support the development of algorithms for field analysis and optimization, with particular attention to collaborative aspects (machine/machine and human/machine interaction). The agri-station will foster research in image analysis and advanced sensing, to support decision-making.