NRI: INT: COLLAB: COOPERATIVE ROBOTIC SYSTEMS FOR PRECISION AGRICULTURE AND PLANT HEALTH MANAGEMENT

The goals of this project are:1)The introduction of a collaborative robots-based and plant-centric framework which is a paradigm shift in crop management. The objective is to use robotics assets to materialize this plant-centric framework. Both aerial and ground robots will be integrated into a system-of-systems fashion.2) The creation of innovative algorithms in robotics and computer vision to allow a multi-resolution surveillance approach. The objective is to use these algorithms to achieve easy transitions from a resolution level to the next.3) The fusion of hyperspectral and multispectral imaging techniques with advanced computer vision and machine learning methodologies in order to enhance data granularity and accuracy. The objective is to have multi-modal3D crop health maps across varying spatial and temporal scales.4) The creation of fertilizer recommendation algorithms that reduce financial costs and environmental impact by capitalizing on the use of robots, sensors, and models that operate on multi-scale, multi-modal plant-centric and plant-specific crop data provided upon demand. The objective is to start from a limited fertilizer recommendation scenario to more comprehensive ones.5) Extensive field testing of the proposed methodologies in multiple corn test sites spread throughout Central and South Central Minnesota, as well as Western Nevada. There are multiple objectives that range from testing components of the framework to more complete demonstrations.