Robotic Crop Pollinator

Robotic Crop Pollinator

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Washington State University scientists working on developing robotic crop pollination technology recently received a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Washington State associate professor Manoj Karkee says they started looking at the feasibility of this technology because of growing concerns and needs reported by those in the tree fruit industry and others. “Because of these challenges of finding enough pollinators, and also because of the challenges weather and environmental factors play in the pollinating process, we wanted to investigate the possibility of actually using robots to do the same.”

 

Karkee says this research will build on the nearly ten years of robotics in agriculture work taking place at Washington State University. He noted this recent USDA funding will help the university work with researchers from Penn State.

Karkee says challenging and revolutionary efforts like this require a diverse group of researchers.

“For example in this particular case we must have a computer scientist, or a robotics kind of background, we must have a horticultural background, and we certainly need to have an engineering background, all in place in order to do something like this. Also, multi-state efforts are important to understand the problems and stakeholder interests and needs in different parts of the country, so when we develop something like this, and we work on something like this, we have a much wider prospective on the problem.”

 

The grant from the USDA runs for three years.

Previous ReportMicrobes and hybrids
Next ReportEXCAVATOR