Application and Innovation of Digital Technologies in Controlled Environment Agriculture
A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 August 2026 | Viewed by 849
Editors
Interests: controlled environment agriculture (CEA); plant phenotyping; indoor remote sensing; hyperspectral imaging; interpretable machine learning; imagery data mining; agricultural robotics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: precision agriculture; controlled environment agriculture; robotics; sensing and automation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is rapidly transforming modern food production by enabling precise control of crop growth conditions, improving resource efficiency, and ensuring year-round productivity. As CEA systems expand in scale and complexity, digital technologies, ranging from imaging and sensing platforms to robotics, artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision tools, have become indispensable for optimizing crop performance and operational sustainability. These innovations enhance growers’ ability to monitor plant health, optimize inputs, automate labor-intensive tasks, facilitate crop protection strategies, and improve forecasting accuracy. Based on these advancements, we are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Agronomy, titled “Application and Innovation of Digital Technologies in Controlled Environment Agriculture,” which will focus on the following topics:
- The current landscape of digital technologies supporting CEA production, management, and crop protection;
- Novel sensing, imaging, and data analytics approaches for real-time crop and environmental assessment and prediction;
- Integration of robotics, IoT systems, and AI-driven decision tools to enhance CEA productivity and sustainability;
- Challenges and opportunities in scaling digital innovations across various commercial CEA production systems.
Dr. Zhihang Song
Dr. Azlan Zahid
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy 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.
Keywords
- controlled environment agriculture (CEA)
- agricultural robotics
- plant phenotyping
- real-time crop monitoring
- precision agriculture
- AI in agriculture
- Internet of Things (IoT)
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