Advanced Agriculture Machines and Technologies in Smart Farming

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of smart machines in the agricultural sector enhances the efficiency of food production, making it more sustainable and profitable, while decreasing the negative environmental impact. Smart farming benefits from the rapid development of IT in collecting and processing data and decision making. However, the specificity of the agricultural environment and farm management limits the actual implementation of smart machines in fields.

Most farms worldwide are small companies that cannot afford large investments in new technologies without being certain of the future profitability. Existing smart machines usually have a narrow specialization, have a high cost, and are only applicable during short periods of time, which means they are only efficient in specific cases and conditions. In addition, safety regulations for autonomous machines usually require the presence of a human observer close to the machines.

The agricultural environment is still challenging for the current level of AI, and in most cases, human workers perform perception tasks better than robots. Moreover, field robots are usually used in an unfitted environment with a high level of plant diversity, which complicates the machine's functioning.

Barn robots have been successfully integrated, particularly due to the regularized working environment they are used in. However, many tasks in animal farms, both indoors and outdoors, still require automation through smart machines.

The objective of this Special Issue is to advance the agricultural sector to the next technological level by developing new methods and machines, as well as facilitating the effective integration of existing machines.

Dr. Victor Bloch
Guest Editor

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• field robots and drones for actuating
• new tasks performed by autonomous machines
• human–robot collaboration in field tasks
• robot swarms in field tasks
• infrastructure for robot autonomy in fields
• low-cost platforms for commercial use
• economic considerations in using smart farm machines
• safety issues in field robot autonomy
• fitting plants and the growing environment to machines
• robotics in PLF