From Farm to Takeoff: Small Unpiloted Robots for Precision Sensing in Agricultural Systems

Biological and agricultural environments can be dynamic, unstructured, and uncertain, posing challenges for data collection at the necessary spatial and temporal scales to enable meaningful analysis and decision-making. Small robotic systems, often coupled with computer vision applications, can overcome some of these challenges by enabling autonomous or human-assisted remote and in situ data collection. This talk will present a suite of technologies that leverage ground, surface, and aerial robotics, mechatronics, and computer vision to broaden sensing capabilities across different types of agricultural environments. Demonstrative case studies will be presented, including robot-assisted hydrologic assessment, high-throughput phenotyping, and aerial manipulation, with a focus on their value in precision agriculture applications. This talk will illustrate how the strategic, user-focused design of automated systems to overcome unique data collection challenges can enable better understanding and decision-making in agricultural and biological environments.

Dr. Sierra Young is an Assistant Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on the use of robotics and automation for sensing and sense-making in agricultural and natural systems, and human-robot interaction for small unpiloted systems. She also conducts Extension work in the area of sensors and robotics for precision management and was recently named the New Faces of ASABE 2020 Top Honoree. Before arriving at NC State, she worked as a Visiting Scholar in the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department at Iowa State University. Dr. Young received her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering as a Department of Defense NDSEG Fellow with a focus on the human-robot interaction for physical object manipulation by small aerial systems from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018.