Sensing and Perception Systems for Situational Awareness of Agricultural Robotic Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

The last few years have seen an increasing technological transfer from robotics to agriculture to develop intelligent vehicles that can significantly enhance the sustainability of agricultural systems. Robotics technology has been recently proven to be especially valuable for the development of in-field high-throughput phenotyping platforms supporting precision farming applications, to improve natural resource-saving and health and safety conditions of the workforce, as well as to increase productivity and competitiveness of agricultural production. In this respect, accurate and robust sensing and perception systems, taking advantage of the latest research advances in the field of machine learning and deep learning techniques, play a critical role in addressing unsolved issues such as safe interaction with workers and animals, controlled traffic applications, crop row guidance, surveying for variable rate applications, and situation awareness in general.

This Special Issue invites original submissions addressing the study and development of sensing and perception systems to endow an agricultural vehicle with cognitive abilities to safely navigate and interact with its operational environment, with workers or other robots, as well as articles dealing with the study and development of novel data analysis techniques for crop assessment, recognition of condition using data acquired by agricultural robotic platforms, and any other relevant application of such technologies in crops and animal husbandry. Papers providing experimental evidence in the field and involving the integration of different disciplines such as engineering, mathematics/statistics, occupational safety and health, human–machine interface and ergonomics, and environmental and computer science are particularly encouraged. Contributions focusing on the development of agricultural robotic technologies to achieve the United Nations sustainable development goals, such as securing healthy and sustainable food and safe working conditions, and overcoming and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic are welcome.

Dr. Eugenio Cavallo
Dr. Roberto Marani
Dr. Annalisa Milella
Guest Editors

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