Seminar Title: Automated Agriculture: Focus on Harvesting
Room 250 Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley
Wednesday, March 18 , 2015 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM (PST)
Abstract:
Mechanizing the hand harvesting of fresh market crops constitutes one of the biggest challenges to the sustainability of the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry.Depending on the crop, labor contributes up to 60% of the variable production cost and recent labor shortages have led to loss of production and reduction of planted acreage in several crops. Innovation is desperately needed in the design of mechanical/robotic harvesters and harvest-aid machines for delicate fresh-market crops. This talk will discuss the challenges involved, and will present new approaches toward model-based design and control of high-throughput harvesting systems, which are inspired by robotics and automation science.
Stavros G. Vougioukas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at UC Davis and works in the area of mechanization and automation of specialty crops, focusing on the design, development, and testing of actuators, sensors and control systems for optimal management of inputs and products.
Free and open to the public, the CITRIS Research Exchange Seminar Series is a weekly dialogue highlighting leading voices on societal-scale research issues. Each one-hour seminar starts at 12pm PST and is hosted live in Sutardja Dai Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Lunch is provided at UC Berkeley for those who register in advance.
Live webcasting of each CITRIS Research Exchange seminar is available at these CITRIS campuses and also online at http://video.citris.berkeley.edu/playlists/webcast:
- CITRIS @ Davis: 1131 Kemper Hall, College of Engineering, UC Davis
- CITRIS @ Merced: 322-Willow, Classroom and Office Building (COB), UC Merced
- CITRIS @ Santa Cruz: Room 595B, Engineering 2 Building, Baskin School of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz
Ask questions live via Twitter using #CITRISRE. All talks may be viewed on our YouTube channel at least a week after the event.
The full schedule for the CITRIS Research Exchange Seminar Series can be found on the CITRIS site.