IEEE RAS Summer School on Agricultural Robotics (SSAR 2015)

Early last December, Frank Tobe published the article Agricultural technology making news on Robohub, in which he mentioned the IEEE RAS sponsored Summer School on Agricultural Robotics, to be held in February, 2015. Well, February has come and gone, and the inaugural IEEE RAS Summer School on Agricultural Robotics (SSAR 2015) took place as scheduled.

Organizers for this event included Dr. Robert Fitch (convener), Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR), Professor Salah Sukkarieh, ACFR Director of Research and Innovation, Marcel Bergerman of Carnegie Mellon's Field Robotics Center (FRC), Professor EJ (Eldert) van Henten of Wangenigen UR, Professor John Billingsley of the University of South Queensland, John Reid, Director, Product Technology and Innovation at John Deere's Moline Technology Innovation Center (MTIC), and Professor Mingcong Deng of the Graduate School of Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.

Invited speakers included Andrew Bate, Founding Director and CEO of SWARM FARM Robotic Agriculture, Marcel Bergerman (mentioned above), Professor Simon Blackmore, Head of Engineering at Harper-Adams University, Bruce Finney, Executive Director of Australia's Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC), David Johnson of ACFR, Anthony Kachenko, Research & Development Team Leader & Portfolio Manager at Horticulture Innovation Australia, Associate Professor Kendra Kerrisk of the University of Sydney, Juan Nieto, ACFR Research Fellow, Timo Oksanen, University lecturer in the Helsinki University Department of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Tristan Perez of Queensland University of Technology, Rohan Rainbow of Crop Protection Australia, Andrew Robson, a Research Fellow with the Precision Agriculture Research Group (PARG) at the University of New England, Daniel Schmoldt, National Program Leader in the Division of Agricultural Systems, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Professor Salah Sukkarieh (mentioned above), Professor EJ (Eldert) van Henten (mentioned above), Brett Whelan, University of Sydney Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, and Qin Zhang, Director of the Center for Precision & Automated Agriculture at Washington State University.

Of these, Robert Fitch,Salah Sukkarieh, and Kendra Kirrisk have all been interviewed by Robots Podcast, and Andrew Bate was mentioned prominently in an interview with Peter Corke of Queensland University of Technology. Kendra Kirrisk was also included in 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2014) and in Robotic cornucopia: Robohub focuses on the state-of-the-art and the future of agricultural robotics, and Simon Blackmore, Salah Sukkarieh, and EJ (Eldert) van Henten were all mentioned in a review of an article by James Mitchell Crow. Simon Blackmore has also been interviewed numerous times by BBC Radio4's Farming Today.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation published several articles about the event on their website: one highlighting Robert Fitch and Andrew Bate, another highlighting EJ van Henten, and a third highlighting Simon Blackmore.

This is an auspicious beginning for what should become an important annual event.