How Sensors, Robotics And Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Agriculture

"Plant breeding is another interesting application we're pursuing, where robotically gathered plant phenotype data can be collected over much larger breeding experiments that current manual measurement techniques allow," said Kantor. "Machine learning tools can then combine the collected phenotype data with genetic and environmental data to help a breeders and geneticists better understand the relationships between genetics, environment, and plant performance." "This in turn accelerates the breeding process, allowing breeders to evaluate many more plants each season so that they can more quickly select for desirable traits such as yield or disease resistance," adds Kantor. Kantor says this kind of accelerated breeding program could have significant benefit in the developing world such as Subsaharan Africa. The FarmView initiative wants to develop inexpensive robotic systems that small- to medium-scale growers can afford to implement.