U of M professor develops robot that uses AI to help with farming

A robot using AI is being developed at the University of Manitoba to help make agriculture easier for farmers.

A Manitoba professor has developed a robot that uses engineering and artificial intelligence to help improve agriculture and harvesting in the province.

Jay Wang, an assistant professor in the engineering department at the University of Manitoba, has developed a prototype farm robot with help from the students at the Robot Autonomy Lab that can be used for agriculture tasks.

“I prefer to develop technology that’s applicable to the real-world environment,” Wang said. “The agriculture sector is big in our province, so I want to develop a robotic solution to boost productivity in agriculture.”

The robot is a self-driving farm vehicle that can follow set paths. It uses artificial intelligence to help adjust its speed and the tasks being performed based on the terrain it’s operating on.

“The beauty of AI tools is we can learn the dynamics between the robot, the tractor and the soil very accurately,” Wang said. “After we know, we can send the robot to feel what the terrain looks like. And because we are learning the dynamics between the robot and the terrain, we can make our accuracy much better.”

The robot is being tested regularly on a field near the university. Wang said on Monday they tested how the robot would run in snow, which will help fine-tune it for future use.

“We want our machine smarter, but simultaneously, we want to control it to make sure they are safe enough for farmers,” he said.