A UC Santa Cruz student robotics team advised by CITRIS researcher Dejan Milutinovic has won the Excellence in Safety Award at the second annual Farm Robotics Challenge.
Supported by a 2022 CITRIS at UC Santa Cruz Interdisciplinary Innovation Program (I2P) award, the “Electrified Slugs” team developed an emergency stop mechanism and a remote navigation joystick to control a small electric tractor. A farmer operating the tractor can access both of the new safety features from an app on a mobile device.
The team also won the Small Farm Prize at last year’s competition for their software to autonomously weed plant lines.