Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

The annual meeting started a visit to Bard Date Farm to observe date harvesting operation and harvesting equipment, followed by a complete tour of DATEPAC palm date processing (West) and packing (East) plants, and a tour of the Yuma County Water Users Association headquarters. The activities of the day was concluded with a tour of the University of Arizona Yuma Agricultural Research Center with a demonstration of an automated in‐row weeding machine (ROBOVATOR) using fluorescent paint to mark/trace crop plants. The tours of Bard Date farm and DATEPAC West plant were guided by Mr. Dave Manscheim, manager of Bard Date Co. The tour of DATEPAC East plant was guided by Hector Medina, Production Manager of DATEPAC LLC. Tour of Yuma County Water Users Association was given by Tom Davis, Manager. Tour of the UA Yuma Ag research and demonstration were given by Dr. Mark Siemens. 

The venue of the business meeting was Holiday Inn Express, 2044 S Avenue 3 E, Yuma, AZ. Members Present were: Dr. Filip To, Mississippi State University, Dr. Mark Siemens, University of Arizona, Dr. Joseph Dvorak, University of Kentucky, Dr. Qin Zhang, Washington State University, Dr. David Slaughter, U.C. Davis, Dr. Loren Gautz, University of Hawaii, and Dr. Jade Liu, Penn State University (via teleconference). 

The business meeting started with an updates from USDA‐NIFA, provided by Dr. Daniel Schmoldt, National Program Leader, Presented Remotely via teleconference. It followed by the states report. Seven universities (Mississippi State University, Penn State University, University of Arizona, University of California Davis, University of Kentucky, University of Hawaii, and Washington State University) provided a report presentation at the annual meeting. 

An officer election was held during the business meeting to elect the Vice Chair and Secretary for 2017. Dr. Renfu Lu, USDA ARS of Michigan State University was elected unanimously as the 2017 Vice Chair and Dr. Joe Dvorak was elected unanimously as the Secretary of W2009 for 2017. The current Vice Chair, Dr. Stavros Vougioukas, will automatically become the Chair for 2018 (effecting after the 2017 meeting). 

After consulted with Dr. Jude Liu, the committee voted unanimously to hold the 2017 meeting in Pennsylvania with the specific site to be determined.

Short-term Outcomes:

(1) The AZ Station is working on developing precision weeding machines for controlling intra-row weeds at the centimeter level scale of accuracy. The current machine system utilizes a machine vision system for plant detection and herbicidal spray to kill weeds;

(2) The CA team performed a simulation study on linear fruit reachability in high-density, trellised pear trees which used a linear only motion to reach the fruits intending to harvest fruit on certain architecture trees using simple telescopic robotic arms;

(3) ) CA team has also developed an automated fruit quality and food safety inspection system for processing tomatoes which could automatically prepare a deaerated tomato juice sample, and present the sample to a sensor suite for measuring color, soluble solids content, and pH;

(4) To inform engineers on how to select branches to cut in intensive apple orchards, PSU Station has developed simplified sequential pruning rules for producing the highest crop value for Gala;

(5) WA Station developed a robotic end-effector based on the dynamics of human hand during manual apple picking which is expected to be around 25% cheaper than currently available industrial robotic arms;

(6) WA Station used human-machine collaboration in apple identification and led to identification accuracy of >98% in both day and night time operation. It could help a robotic system achieved a harvesting efficiency of >90%.

Outputs:

(1) The multi-state team has collectively published at least 27 peer reviewed journal articles with at least 10 more in press, presented over 20 papers at various international professional conferences. At least three graduate students completed their studies from relevant research;

(2) UC Davis has developed a picking bag that uses load cells, a GPS and an Arduino microcontroller to record and store fruit weight data;

(3) The FL team developed a system for heat treatment of HLB infected trees under field condition using steam as the heat source;

(4) The Hawaii Station did an engineering economic analysis of the value of a mechanical harvester for 3 to 100 acres. All of these size farms can economically justify a mechanical harvester with the current technology.

(5) The Pennsylvania Station has designed and fabricated a low-cost harvest-assist device for apple orchard platforms, and tested in commercial chards.

Activities:

(1) AZ station made an outreach effort to educate stakeholders about the feasibility of using commercially available robotic cultivators in vegetable production to remove inter- and intra-row weeds;

(2) A demonstration heat pump dehumidifier powered dryer has been constructed by Hawaii Station to show potential energy savings well as performing drying at temperatures that protect the quality of the products;

(3) The Michigan station under this project continues as a project for over-the-row systems for tart cherry production.

Milestones:

(1) An instrumented bag being prototyped and used in apple harvest experiments (CA);

(2) A simulator being developed for fruit reachability debugged and functional assessment (CA);

(3) A commercial equipment manufacturer has participated in the over-the-row harvest evaluation studies as a critical step of making the research outcomes usable to stakeholders;

(4) WA team built a self-propelled harvesting research platform for shake-and-catch mass harvesting of fresh-market apple. This research platform has been used in 2016 harvesting studies conducted in WA commercial apple orchards;

(5) A WA-OR joint team conceptualized and fabricated an autonomous bin in-orchard management robot. This bin-robot has been tested in individual functions in typical commercial apple orchards, and will start performing integrated autonomous capability in the 2017 season.

ARIZONA

Lati, R.N., Siemens, M.C. & Fennimore, S.A. 2015. Intelligent cultivators – New tool for improved integrated weed management in vegetable crops. In Proc. 2015 Weed Sci. Soc. of America Ann. Meeting., Abstract no. 194. Lawrence, Kansas: WSSA.

Lati, R.N., Siemens, M.C. Rauchy, J.S. & Fennimore, S.A. 2016. Intra-row weed removal in broccoli and transplanted lettuce with an intelligent cultivators. Weed Tech. 30(3): 655-663.

Fennimore, S.F., Slaughter, D.C., Siemens, M.C., Leon, R.G. & Saber, M.N. 2016. Technology for Automation of Weed Control in Specialty Crops. Weed Tech. (In-Press)

CALIFORNIA

Nguyen, T.T., D.C. Slaughter, J.N. Maloof, and N. Sinha. 2016.  Plant phenotyping using multi-view stereo vision with structured lights.  Proc. SPIE  9866, Autonomous Air and Ground Sensing Systems for Agricultural Optimization and Phenotyping, 986608 (May 17, 2016);   doi: 10.1117/12.2229513

Shiu, J.W., D.C. Slaughter, L.E. Boyden, D.M. Barrett. 2016. Correlation of Descriptive Analysis and Instrumental Puncture Testing of Watermelon Cultivars. J. food Sci. 18(6):S1506-S1514.

Fennimore, S.A., D.C. Slaughter, M.C. Siemens, R.G. Leon, and M.N. Saber. 2016.  Technology for Automation of Weed Control in Specialty Crops.  Weed Technology (doi: 10.1614/WT-D-16-00070.1)

Arikapudi, R., Vougioukas, S.G., Jiménez- Jiménez, F., Farangis Khosro Anjom, F. (2016). Estimation of Fruit Locations in Orchard Tree Canopies Using Radio Signal Ranging and Trilateration. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (125):160-172.

Vougioukas, S.G., He, L., Arikapudi, R. (2016). Orchard Worker Localisation Relative to a Vehicle Using Radio Ranging and Trilateration. Biosystems Engineering (147): 1-16.

FLORIDA

Li, H., W. S. Lee, and K. Wang. 2016. Immature green citrus fruit detection and counting based on fast normalized cross correlation (FNCC) using natural outdoor colour images. Precision Agriculture, DOI 10.1007/s11119-016-9443-z.

Zhao, C., W. S. Lee, and D. He. 2016. Immature green citrus detection based on colour feature and sum of absolute transformed difference (SATD) using colour images in the citrus grove. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 124: 243-253. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.04.009. 

Pourreza, A., W. S. Lee, M. A. Ritenour, and P. Roberts. 2016. Spectral characteristics of citrus black disease. HortTechnology 26(3): 254-260. 

Yun, H. S., S. H. Park, H.-J. Kim, W. S. Lee, K. D. Lee, S. Y. Hong, G. H. Jung. 2016. Use of unmanned aerial vehicle for multi-temporal monitoring of soybean vegetation fraction. Journal of Biosystems Engineering 41(2):126-137. 

Choi, D., W. S. Lee, R. Ehsani, J. K. Schueller, and F. M. Roka. 2016. Detection of dropped citrus fruit on the ground and evaluation of decay stages in varying illumination conditions. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 127: 109-119. 

Cubero, S., W. S. Lee, N. Aleixos, F. Albert, and J. Blasco. 2016. Automated systems based on machine vision for inspecting citrus fruits from the field to postharvest - A review. Food and Bioprocess Technology 9: 1623-1639. 

Ni, Z., T. F. Burks, W. S. Lee. 2016. 3D reconstruction of plant/tree canopy using monocular and binocular vision. J. Imaging. In press. 

Posadas, B., W. S. Lee, S. Galindo, Y. Hong and S. Kim. 2016. State of knowledge of apple Marssonina blotch (AMB) disease among Gunwi farmers. Journal of Biosystems Engineering. In press. 

Park, S. H., W. S. Lee, Y. Hong, M. Shuaibu, and S. Kim. Detection of apple Marssonina blotch with PLSR, PCA, and LDA using outdoor hyperspectral imaging. Spectroscopy and Spectral Analysis. In press. 

Castro, A. I. p, R. Ehsani, R.C. Ploetz, J.H. Crane, and J. Abdulridha. 2015. Optimum spectral and geometric parameters for early detection of laurel wilt disease in avocado. Remote Sensing of Environment. 171:33-44. 

Katti, A.R., W.S. Lee, R. Ehsani, C. Yang. 2015. Band selection using forward feature selection algorithm for citrus. Journal of Biosystems Engineering. 40(4):417-427.

Sankaran S.p, R. Ehsani, and K. Morgan. 2015. Detection of anomalies in citrus leaves using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Applied Spectroscopy. 69:913-919. 

Castro, A. I. p, R. Ehsani, R.C. Ploetz, J.H. Crane, and S. Buchanon. 2015. Detection of laurel wilt disease in avocado using low altitude aerial imaging. PLoS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0124642.

HAWAII

Extension bulletins are in preparation.

IOWA

Bravo-Palacios, G. F., G. R. Luecke, and B. L. Steward. 2016. Distortion masking control algorithm for a pneumatic cylinder. ASABE Annual International Meeting, Orlando, FL. July 17-20. 

Gai, J., L. Tang, and B. L. Steward. 2016. Plants Detection, Localization and Discrimination using 3D Machine Vision for Robotic Intra-row Weed Control. ASABE Annual International Meeting, Orlando, FL. July 17-20. 

Schramm, M. W., M. Hanna, M. J. Darr, S. J. Hoff, and B. L. Steward. 2016. Measuring sub-second wind velocity changes at one meter above the ground. ASABE Paper No. 162461726. St. Joseph, Mich.: ASABE. DOI: 10.13031/aim.202461726 

Schramm, M., M. Hanna, M. Darr, S. Hoff, and B. Steward. 2016. A not so-random walk with wind: evaluating wind velocity update methods in ground based spray deposition models. ASABE Paper No. 162459709. St. Joseph, Mich.: ASABE. DOI: 10.13031/aim.202459709 

Hanna, H.M., D. N. Polk, B. L. Steward, and K. A. Rosentrater. 2016. Economic analysis of row cover insect exclusion for cucurbit crops. ASABE Paper No. 162461363. St. Joseph, Mich.: ASABE. 

Felizardo, K. R., H. V. Mercaldi, P. E. Cruvinel, V. A. Oliveira, and B. L. Steward. 2016. Modeling and model validation of a chemical injection sprayer system. Applied Engineering in Agriculture 32(3): 285-297. doi: 10.13031/aea.32.10606

Jingyao, G. 2016. Plants detection, localization and discrimination using 3D machine vision for robotic intra-row weed control. MS thesis. Iowa State University.

KENTUCKY

Rounsaville, J., Dvorak, J., Stombaugh, T. (2016). Methods for Calculating Relative Cross-Track Error for ASABE/ISO 12188-2 from Discrete Measurements. Transactions of the ASABE. In Press. 

Seyyedhasani, H., Dvorak, J., Sama, M., & Stombaugh, T. (2016). Technical Note: Mobile device-based location services accuracy. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 32(5). In Press. 

Dvorak, J., Stombaugh, T., & Wan, Y. (2016). Nozzle Sensor for In-System Chemical Concentration Monitoring. Transactions of the ASABE. 59 (5). In Press. 

Jackson, J. & Dvorak, J. (2016). Hybrid Diesel-Electric Drivetrain for Small Agricultural Field Machines. Transactions of the ASABE. 59 (5). In Press 

Rounsaville, J. & Dvorak, J. System Power requirements for a Fully Electric Drivetrain in Ag. 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting, Orlando, Florida. July 17-20, 2016. 

Dvorak, J.S. Electrical Energy for Agricultural Machinery. Oral Presentation. 2015 Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology Conference. Novi, Michigan. September 15-17, 2015 

Dvorak, J. & Seyyedhasani, Hasan. Simple Field Logistics Simulation Comparing Field Efficiencies and Field Capacities between Larger and Smaller Equipment. Poster Presentation. 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting, Orlando, Florida. July 17-20, 2016. 

Seyyedhasani, H. & Dvorak, J. Comparison of traditional path assignment for multiple vehicles with computer generated one in agricultural field context. 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting, Orlando, Florida. July 17-20, 2016.

MICHIGAN

Donis-Gonzalez, I.R., Guyer, D.E., Fulbright, D. 2016. Quantification and identification of microorganisms found on shell and kernel of fresh edible chestnuts in Michigan. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Vol 96(4514-4522) http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.7667 

Donis-Gonzalez, I.R., Jeong, S., Guyer, D.E., Fulbright, D. 2016. Microbial contamination in peeled chestnut and the efficiency of post-processing treatments for microbial spoilage management. J. Food Processing and Preservation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.12874 

Donis-Gonzalez, I.R., Guyer, D.E., Pease, A. 2016. Postharvest non-invasive assessment of undesirable fibrous tissue in fresh processing carrots using computer tomography images. Journal of Food Engineering. Vol 190(154-166) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2016.06.024compag.2016.06.018 

Donis-Gonzalez, I.R., Guyer, D.E., Pease, A. 2016. Postharvest non-invasive classification of tough-fibrous asparagus using computed tomography images. Postharvest Biology and Technology. Vol 127 (27-35) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.06.018 

Donis-Gonzalez, I.R. and Guyer, D.E. 2016. Classification of processing asparagus sections using color images. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. Vol 127 (236-241). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.06.018

MISSISSIPPI

Thesis: Opeyemi Christiana Olojede, “Comparative evalutation of three different methodologies for determining embryo temperature in broiler hatching eggs during incubation”, Mississippi State University, August 2015

PENNSYLVANIA

Lyons, D.J., P.H. Heinemann, J. Liu, J., J.R. Schupp, and T.A. Baugher. 2015. Development of a selective automated blossom thinning system for peaches. Transactions of ASABE. 58(6):1447-1457. 

Zhang, Z., P.H. Heinemann, J. Liu, J.R. Schupp, and T.A. Baugher. 2016. Design and field test of a low-cost apple harvest-assist unit. Transactions of ASABE. 59(5): (in press) 

Zhang, Z., P.H. Heinemann, J. Liu, J.R. Schupp, and T.A. Baugher. 2016. Development of mechanical apple harvesting technology – a review. Transactions of ASABE. 59(5): (in press) 

WASHINGTON

Amatya, S., and M. Karkee, 2016. Integration of visible branch sections and cherry clusters for detecting cherry tree branches in dense foliage canopies. 2016. Biosystems Engineering, 119:72-81. 

Amatya, S., M. Karkee, A. Gongal, Q. Zhang, M.D. Whiting. 2016. Detection of Cherry Tree Branches in Planner Architecture for Automated Sweet-Cherry Harvesting. Biosystems Engineering. 146:3-15. 

Davidson, J., Silwal, A., Karkee, M., Mo, C., Qin, Z. 2016. Hand Picking Dynamic Analysis for Undersensed Robotic Apple Harvesting. Transactions and the ASABE, Vol. 59(4): 745-758.

De Kleine, M. E., and M. Karkee. 2016. A Semi-Automated Harvesting Prototype for Shaking Fruit Tree Limbs. Transactions of the ASABE, 58(6): 1461-1470. 

Gongal, A., A. Silwal, S. Amatya, M. Karkee, Q. Zhang, and K. Lewis. 2016. Apple Crop-load Estimation with Over-the-Row Machine Vision System. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 20: 26–35. 

Li, J., M. Karkee, Q. Zhang, K. Xiao, T. Feng, 2016. Characterizing apple fruit robotic picking patterns and detaching parameters. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 127:633-640.

Santiago, W. E., N. J. Leite, B. J. Teruel, M. Karkee, C. A. M. Azania, and R. Vitorino. 2016. Development and testing of image processing algorithm to estimate weed infestation level in corn fields. Australian Journal of Crop Science.10(9): 12232-1237. 

Ye, Y., 2016. A maneuverability study on a wheeled bin management robot in tree fruit orchard environments. Ph.D. Dissertation, April 2016, Washington State University. 

Ye, Y. L. He, Q. Zhang. 2016. Steering control strategies for a four-wheel-independent-steering bin managing robot. Paper and presentation at the 5th IFAC Conference on Sensing, Control and Automation for Agriculture, August 14-17, Seattle, WA.

WEST VIRGINIA

Talks to stakeholders, peer groups, multistate clientele: Tabb, A. Computer vision in tree fruit production. Marquette University Electrical and Computer Engineering lecture series, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. October 13, 2015. 

Tabb, A. Engineering Computer Vision Tools for Entomology Research. Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Integrated Pest management working group meeting. Virginia Tech’s Alson H. Smith, Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center (AREC), Winchester, VA. December 2, 2015. 

Tabb, A. Autonomously Determining the Shape of Trees for Structural Phenotyping and Pruning. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers technical committee on Agricultural Robotics, international virtual presentation. Feb 11, 2016. 

Tabb, A. Robotic Imaging System for Orchard Automation. Young Growers Alliance (of Pennslyvania) Tour. USDA-ARS-Appalachian Fruit Research Station, Kearneysville, West Virginia. June 7, 2016. 

Tabb, A. A robotic system for three-dimensional tree architecture phenotyping. Cornell Fruit Field Day, Geneva, New York. July 20, 2016