Application of Robots and Automation Technology in Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

The agricultural sector is facing several problems related to climate change, soil health depletion, water scarcity and pollution, overuse of pesticides and fertilisers, and labour costs, among others. Technological developments related to automation and robotics can support farmers in enhancing the productivity of their farms in a profitable and sustainable way. Automation, robotics, AI, and IoT enable precise farm operations and environmentally sustainable practices to be achieved by allowing precision management of nutrients and plant protection products, mechanical weed removal, harvesting, and reducing the need for human labour.

This Special Issue, “Application of Robots and Automation Technology in Agriculture”, will address new topics of robotics and automation technology applied to agriculture. The aim is to publish new works and advances in research using technological innovations to automate the processes of farming, aiding a move toward remedying the lack of human resources in the agriculture field.

Submissions are welcome from topics including—not limited to—the following:

• Mobile robotics applied to agriculture support;
• Unmanned aerial robotics to support agriculture tasks and monitoring of environmental applications;
• Collaborative manipulators to support people on agricultural applications (soil preparation, seeding, crop protection);
• Robots for pruning, thinning, harvesting, mowing, and spraying;
• Robotic platforms for monitoring, prediction, and aiding in decision making;
• IoT for sampling and data collection.

Prof. Dr. José Lima
Prof. Dr. José Boaventura Ribeiro da Cunha
Prof. Dr. Antonio Valente
Prof. Dr. Filipe Neves Dos Santos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.