Led by Professor Fumiya Iida, Deputy Director of the AgriFoRwArdS Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), and Professor Marc Hanheide, Director of the AgriFoRwArdS CDT, the two-day conference, held recently, brought together engineering researchers and students from the UK and abroad.
The online format of the conference provided an opportunity to invite guest speakers from different parts of the world, and introduce their research and in-field observations to a worldwide agri-food robotics community, including agricultural industry representatives who run agricultural robotics companies in Spain, USA, UK and Japan.
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The attendees discussed how developments in robotics and other modern technologies can help address pressing problems in food supply.
The conference presentations also covered issues such as climate change, soil degradation and unsustainable agricultural practices. There were 14 lectures in total, watched by more than 150 conference participants.
In addition to invited talks and panel discussions, the conference offered an opportunity for CDT students to present their research in front of an international audience via specially organised break-out sessions. Each break-out session was finalised by debating the research ideas presented earlier.
The break-out sessions covered a variety of topics with a focus on advanced technologies and methodologies. Discussions included high-resolution biosensing for bioproduction and monitoring, as well as SHARP, which involves multi-sensor human activity recognition and intention prediction. Participants also explored virtual model control and augmented reality applications in human-robot object handovers. Additionally, the operation of multiplexed soft robotic sensors was a topic of interest. Another significant area of discussion involved the use of deep reinforcement learning to optimize water usage in irrigation schemes, utilizing a Bayesian deep network to model uncertainty effectively.
Professor Iida said: "The Agri-Food Robotics Online Conference marks the first public event of our CDT, bringing together 14 talks from leading researchers across the UK, Spain, Norway, the USA and Japan. Through keynote talks and panel discussions, we explored cutting-edge challenges in agri-food robotics, researcher training and paths to commercialisation."
Source: Cambridge University