The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) awarded a $727,981 project grant to New Mexico State University (NMSU) to develop advanced technologies for robot-enabled smart, sustainable, and eco-friendly farming. The key objectives are to establish a team of cooperative robots with high autonomy to perform various agricultural tasks during planting, cultivation, and harvesting to enhance productivity and address challenges like water scarcity and...
This $324,213 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program supports the development of a novel AI infrastructure to integrate multi-scale sensing data and 3D modeling for enhanced crop monitoring and assessment. The key products to be delivered include: An AI system that integrates satellite, drone, and in-situ sensor data to accurately model 3D crop structures, including both above- and below-ground...
This Project Grant award for $300,000 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) aims to develop a robotic precision spraying system to improve the sustainability of small fruit crop production in the United States. The key deliverables include designing and evaluating an unmanned ground robot-based sprayer that can autonomously apply pesticides based on canopy density, with the goal of significantly reducing...
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with North Dakota State University as a sub-awardee, received a $727,999 Project Grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The objective of this 4-year project is to design, develop, and field-test an integrated software and hardware system for 3D reconstruction of farming environments. The system will utilize an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV)...
This $590,706 Project Grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, supports a 3-year initiative by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) to leverage university-based research at the intersection of data science/AI and agricultural areas. The key objectives are to: (1) track and model changes in irrigation land cover patterns using AI-based big data applications, (2) better inform the future of irrigated row crops through...
The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a $650,000 Project Grant to Agrofocal Technologies, Inc. under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program / Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program (CFDA 10.212). The funding supports the development of Agrofocal's real-time crop monitoring system that can be mounted on any vehicle to provide high-resolution, under-the-canopy images of crops. This system enables farmers to monitor crop health,...
This EAGER (Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) federal Project Grant award of $300,000 is provided by the National Science Foundation through its Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) program (CFDA 47.079). The goal of this 2-year project is to develop and deploy artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tools to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability worldwide. The key products and services to be delivered include: (1) Developing hybrid machine learning...
This $299,999 project grant from the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) will support research collaborations between the University of Illinois and Phenorob to strengthen outcomes at the University's AI Institute for Farms and Agriculture (AIFARMS). The partners will work on four research thrusts through November 2025: 1) improving autonomy, scale and capabilities of digital agriculture tools; 2) enhancing...
This $400,403 Project Grant awarded by the Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Equipment Grants Program (CFDA 10.519) aims to acquire a shared Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging System (AHSIS) to enhance collaborative research capacity in AI-enabled agriculture at 11 institutions. The AHSIS will support 21 researchers across multiple disciplines to acquire, process, and analyze high-resolution hyperspectral imagery data of crops. The integrated imaging...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.079) is providing $300,000 to Georgia Tech Research Corporation to advance innovations in digital agriculture and optimization through an international research network. The "AI4OPT-AG" project will leverage controlled-environment agriculture and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced data analytics to enhance global food...