Agriculture
Addressing Pressing Labor Shortages
The tree fruit industry is a significant component of the US agricultural sector, representing about 10% (~$20 billion) of all crop production. In Washington state (WA), tree fruit growers lead the nation in the production of apples and sweet cherries, contributing ~$2.5 billion directly, and ~$10 billion via downstream activities, to the US GDP in 2019. However, the sustainability of these crops is under threat due to time-sensitive field operations such as pruning, thinning, and harvesting coupled with decreased availability of seasonal and/or migrant labor. Indeed, in recent years, farmers have had to abandon picking parts of orchards from not having sufficient harvest labor. As the industry faces unprecedented labor shortages, crop operations have also historically posed significant health and safety risks to field workers due to heat exhaustion, falls from height, pesticide exposure, and other hazardous working conditions. To address these twin challenges, NRT-LEAD team has been collaborating with local growers, the Washington Fruit Tree Research Commission, and FFRobotics to integrate cutting-edge robotic technology with horticultural solutions. The resulting achievements in robotic harvesting, pruning, & pollination for tree fruit production have the potential to dramatically reduce dependence on manual labor while concurrently increasing the safety of the workforce, enhance crop yield/quality, and improve long-term sustainability of tree fruit industry. Major ongoing research projects in this thematic area are:
- Autonomous Vehicle Path Planning and Control of Irrigation Systems (Dr. M. Hosseinzadeh)
- Universal Robotic Solution for Tree Fruit Orchards (Dr. M. Luo)
- AI, Machine Vision, and Robotics for Specialty Crop Agriculture (Dr. M. Karke)
Autonomous and safe navigation in complex terrains. 
Agricultural robot with soft growing arms. 
Modern canopy architecture of fruit trees.