The Robotanist: A ground-based agricultural robot for high-throughput crop phenotyping

Abstract

The established processes for measuring physiological and morphological traits (phenotypes) of crops in outdoor test plots are labor intensive and error-prone. Low-cost, reliable, field-based robotic phenotyping will enable geneticists to more easily map genotypes to phenotypes, which in turn will improve crop yields. In this paper, we present a novel robotic ground-based platform capable of autonomously navigating below the canopy of row crops such as sorghum or corn. The robot is also capable of deploying a manipulator to measure plant stalk strength and gathering phenotypic data with a modular array of non-contact sensors. We present data obtained from deployments to Sorghum bicolor test plots at various sites in South Carolina, USA.