Automation, LandWISE 2015, LandWISE People, Precision Agriculture, Sensing

Technology Transfer to the Primary Sector

LandWISE 2015 Presenters Mark Burgess and  Bruce MacDonald

MarkBurgess UoA
Mark Burgess
BruceMacDonald
Bruce MacDonald

 

 

 

 

 

New Zealand’s national goals increasing primary sector exports require a significant investment in new technologies that radically optimise resource usage and mitigate impacts associated with sector intensification.  Crucially they need to be technologies that will be adopted by the primary sector.

The University of Auckland has been embracing the associated
technology challenges through a strategy that links its strengths in
life sciences, engineering, chemistry, physics and ICT with the
well-established agricultural and horticultural research institutes
throughout New Zealand and adopting a proactive approach to connecting its scientists and engineers to these sectors and their issues.

For example, ubiquitous work in UAV systems, robotics and automation technologies is now being directed to agritech issues such as pasture management and pollination.

This presentation will cover the strategies implemented to create an
agricultural lens for city scientists and present some case studies of
the research programmes being undertaken. We will present our view on the drivers for adoption.

Associate Professor Bruce MacDonald completed a BE (1st class) and Ph.D in the Electrical Engineering department of the University of Canterbury.  Bruce worked with NZ Electricity and the DSIR in Wellington, NZ, then the Computer Science Department of the University of Calgary in Canada. In 1995 he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Auckland.

His long term goal is to design intelligent robotic assistants that improve the quality of peoples’ lives, with primary research interests in human robot interaction and robot programming systems, and applications in areas such as healthcare and agriculture.

He is the director of the department’s robotics group and a leader for the multidisciplinary CARES robotics team at the University of Auckland. He is the leader of Faculty of Engineering research theme Technology for Health, and Chairman for NZ’s robotics, automation and sensing association.

Bruce is part of a research team to develop modular robots for horticulture.  The Autonomous Multipurpose Mobile Platform (AMMP) modular robot is capable of navigating autonomously in orchards and will include vision-sensing of flowers and fruit for kiwifruit and apples in orchards and arms and grippers for harvesting kiwifruit and apples as well as fast-acting directional control mechanisms for precision targeted spraying of pollen and soft robotic handling of apples and kiwifruit.

The ‘Multipurpose Orchard Robotics’ project is a four year collaboration between Robotics Plus Ltd, University of Auckland, University or Waikato and Plant and Food Research aiming to automate the harvesting and pollination of kiwifruit and apples. (C) RoboticsPlus
The ‘Multipurpose Orchard Robotics’ project is a four year collaboration between Robotics Plus Ltd, University of Auckland, University or Waikato and Plant and Food Research aiming to automate the harvesting and pollination of kiwifruit and apples. (C) RoboticsPlus

The research is a collaboration between Plus Group’s RoboticsPlus Ltd, the University of Auckland, Plant and Food Research, and the University of Waikato.