Stavros Vougioukas
Description: Stavros Vougiokas is the Department Vice Chair and Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at UC Davis. His research focuses on mechanization and automation for specialty crops. He is currently leading two projects to build a robot that can locate and pick fruit efficiently while simultaneously developing a shake-and-catch harvesting system for fruit to prevent fall damage. In 2016 he was awarded the UC Davis College of Engineering Outstanding Junior Faculty Award. He focuses on the design, development and testing of actuators, sensors and control systems for optimal management of inputs and products. In this episode we talk about the use of robotics in agriculture, the design process for robots and the challenges of implementation at a wide scale.
Website: Stavros Vougioukas
Recent Publications:
Annual Review of Control, Robotics, and Autonomous Systems
Development and application of a strawberry yield-monitoring picking cart
Tree Detection with Low-Cost Three-Dimensional Sensors for Autonomous Navigation in Orchards
Resources Mentioned:
Human-Robot Collaboration for Fruit Harvesting
Show Notes:
[01:40] Background, what got him interested in robotics, and how he got to UC Davis
[06:10] What are robots?
[07:30] What is the Internet of Things (IoT) and what examples are there in agriculture?
[12:00] The deployment of sensors in the fields
[13:40] The possibility of open-sourcing agricultural data
[15:45] How can the increase of data collection impact agricultural finances?
[18:15] Why do we need to develop robots for agriculture?
[23:40] His specific research focus
[28:30] The relationship between researchers, public boards, and the farmers
[30:50] What are the different stages involved in the agricultural process?
[32:40] What are the major hubs in the world for Ag-tech and robotics?
[35:20] What is pushing the growth of Ag-tech?
[36:45] How has Ag-tech been impacted by supply chain issues?
[38:00] What are the challenges to implementing robots in agriculture?
[43:30] How precision agriculture could potentially improve health in the U.S.
[49:00] The potential collaboration potential between drones (UAVs) and ground robots in agriculture
[53:20] Why does function have to specific during robotics design?
[58:50] What areas of agriculture need robots the most?
[1:02:00] How are other disciplines working within agricultural robotics?
[1:06:30] How can people get involved in robotics?
[1:09:50] Wrapping up and advice