2019-057 – Autonomous Agricultural Robotic Aerial Servicing System

Agriculture is growing industry that is rapidly taking advantageof recent developments in robotics and automation in order to address thegrowing population’s demand for more sustenance. However, as these smallautonomous units are being deployed to tend farmers’ fields, the problem ofremotely servicing them arises. These services include battery swaps, seedrefilling, and harvest extraction. In order to address this problem, researchers at Kansas StateUniversity have developed the System for AutoNomous and Tending in Agriculture(SANTA) as a means of delivering the needed services. This enables the smallautonomous agricultural vehicles (AAV) to continuously work in order to furthermaximize the AAV’s production yield. SANTA is an unmanned aerial vehicle thatuses a GPS to locate the AAV, and a special approach light system guides SANTAto the AAV to efficiently perform whatever service the AAV requires. Sarah Nolting snolting@ksu.edu 785-532-3910