Research Status, Progress, and Applications of Agricultural Robot and Agriculture 4.0 Technologies in Field Operation—Volume II

Dear Colleagues,

With the rapid increase in the world population, agriculture first moved on from manual operation to mechanization and is now moving toward the implementation of automated/robotic field operations to meet the growing demand for food. However, in contrast to industrial operations, agricultural field operations are complex, unstructured, ill defined, and subject to a high degree of variation in illumination, atmospheric, and landscape conditions in addition to the dynamic biological nature of both field and specialty crops. These challenges make it extremely difficult to implement automated/robotic solutions in agricultural field operations. However, with the technological advancements in GPS (global positioning systems), smart sensors, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), GIS (geographic information systems), the IoT (Internet of Things), machine vision, artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, cybernetics, nanotechnology, digital agriculture, precision agriculture, smart decision support systems, advanced control system, etc., the use of automated/robotic operations in agriculture is becoming a reality.

The aim of this issue is to collect outstanding articles focusing on (but not limited to) robot solutions for various field operations (e.g., planting, irrigation, path planning and navigation, fertilization, spraying, canopy management, pollination, thinning, pruning, weed removal, precision crop load management, harvesting, postharvest transportation, and storage) for both field and specialty crops, precision agriculture applications, advanced in-field sensing and decision support systems, machine vision, artificial intelligence, deep learning, machine learning, big data, IoT, cybernetics, nanotechnology, digital agriculture, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), mechatronics, smart sensors, swarm robotics, and nanorobotics applications in agriculture. 

Dr. Chao Chen
Dr. Satoru Sakai
Dr. Yaqoob Majeed
Prof. Dr. Longsheng Fu
Guest Editors

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