Automated fresh market tree fruit harvesting, where do we stand?
Date
29 May 2018, Tuesday
Time and Venues
| Venues | Local Time | Time Zone |
| Armidale – B55-FG-R00-Small | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Brisbane St Lucia QBP – Level 3 South telepresence room (3.323) | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Canberra Black Mountain – Discovery Lecture Theatre; Crace – Bld44- Meeting Room 3 | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Irymple (VIC): (See Natalie Strickland) | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Narrabri Myall Vale – Conference Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Perth Floreat – B1b Boardroom | 10:30 am | AWST |
| Hobart Sandy Bay – River View Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Toowoomba – Meeting Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
| Waite (SA): B101-FG-R00-BoardWICWest (alternative is SmallWICWest) | 12:00 pm | ACST |
| Werribee (Melbourne) – Peacock Room | 12:30 pm | AEST |
Speaker
Assoc. Prof. Manoj Karkee, Biological Systems Engineering Department, Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems, Washington State University, USA.
Synopsis
In this seminar, Dr. Karkee will first discuss (briefly) why precision and automated/robotic systems are essential for the future of farming (Ag 4.0). He will then summarize past efforts and current status of automated tree fruit harvesting research around the world (e.g. automated cherry harvesting) followed by an introduction of the novel approaches in machine vision, end-effector and manipulation technologies developed in his lab for automated apple harvesting. The seminar will also introduce, rather quickly, a few other research projects (current and recently completed) at Dr. Karkee’s lab including Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)-based bird deterrence in fruit crops, robotic pruning of fruit trees and berry bushes, and robotic weeding in vegetable crops. Finally, the seminar will provide some thoughts on the current challenges in developing and adopting automated machines in farming operations, and new opportunities and direction for research and development in this area.
About the speaker
Dr. Manoj Karkee is an Associate Professor in the Biological Systems Engineering Department at Washington State University (WSU). He was born in Nepal where he received his undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering. He received his MS from Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand and his PhD in Agricultural Engineering and Human Computer Interaction from Iowa State University. Dr. Karkee leads a strong research program in the area of agricultural automation and mechanization with particular emphasis on sensing, machine vision and control for agricultural robotics. Some of his major research topics include fresh market apple and cherry harvesting, fruit tree and berry bush pruning, weed control in vegetable crops, smart irrigation in perennial crops using IoT (we also call Internet of Agricultural Things or IoAT) and big data analytics, novel applications of UAS in agriculture, and tropical biomass harvesting (e.g. energy cane and bana grass). He has published extensively in such journals as ‘Journal of Field Robotics’, ‘Computers and Electronics in Agriculture’, and ‘Transactions of the ASABE’, and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. Dr. Karkee is currently serving as an elected chair for IFAC Technical Committee 8.1, Control in Agriculture, as an associate editor for ‘Transactions of the ASABE’, and as a guest editor for journal ‘Robotics’.
This is a public seminar.
Open-access to The CSIRO Discovery Theatre @ Black Mountain