Farms of the Future for Saudi Arabia: Lessons from the US Mid-West

KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023
Speaker: Girish Chowdhary, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC)

Abstract:
In this talk I will lay out a vision for how advances in Digital Agriculture could enable prosperous and productive farming for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Taking the NIFA Farm of the Future at Illinois as a case study, I will lay out technologies that could enable economies of scale for productive agriculture in the desert. Our team has been at the forefront of leading technological innovation in agricultural robotics in the US MidWest. I will describe technologies such as under-canopy phenotyping, cover-crop planting with robotics for regenerating farm land, plant manipulation with soft robots and advances in autonomy for under-water and field robotics. Underlying these are key advances to AI for robotics, including learning based visual navigation, self-supervised learning, and adaptive control.

I strongly believe that the kingdom has the opportunity to lead in the AgTech space by driving innovations in connected agricultural robotics, AI and ML for ultra-precise agriculture, water harvesting and reuse, automated vertical farming, and automated under-water farming. Not only will these technologies lead to a sustainable ag-tech ecosystem in the varied and challenging landscapes of the desert, but also pave the way to sustainable agricultural intensification around the world as the global population continues to rise.

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Conference:
The KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023 (RobotoKAUST 2023)

Organizing Committee:
Eric Feron, Shinkyu Park, Raquel Peixoto

Date:
08-10 May 2023

Venue:
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Website:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/robotokaust

Organization team and volunteers:
Mohamad T. Shahab, Renzo Caballero, Angelica Coronado Preciado, Kuat Telegenov, Mohammed Aldosari, Katja Gorenflot, Jumana Alashi, Hanouf Al-Hattan, Rehab Ashri, Marta Golem, Adeel Akhtar, Jun Chen, Abdullah Alharthi, Altayeb-Moh'd A. Al-Shedayfat, Amin Almozel, Nawaf Alotaibi, Shatha Alzahrani, Lucas Câmara Dantas Bezerra, Salman Ghori, Arman Ibrayeva, Anton Kim, Bilal Maassarani, Obadah Wali, Joanna M. Ogieglo, Norah Alghamdi

The KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) Lab:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/risclab