MAE Seminar: How to Cultivate AI and Robotics in Specialty Crop Production by Dana Choi

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MAE Seminar: How to Cultivate AI and Robotics in Specialty Crop Production by Dana Choi

Co-Sponsored by the Gainesville Section of IEEE

In-person Location: MAE-A 303 or online
Zoom Meeting ID: 950 8972 5739 Passcode: MAE

Dana Choi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Precision Agriculture and Agricultural Robotics
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Gulf Coast Research and Education Center
University of Florida/IFAS

MAE Faculty Host: John Schueller

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that food demand will require a substantial increase of global food production of 70 percent by 2050. How can we produce more food with better quality sustainably? In this seminar, few examples of precision agriculture applications using machine learning and robotics for specialty crops, more specifically tree fruit production will be presented. The advancement of farming technologies, the transition from conventional farming practices to mechanization, automation, and robotics, has been imperative for precise and scientific farming techniques. Precision agriculture optimizes farming inputs using scientific solutions which have been important in the advancement of agricultural and biological systems. Data-based agricultural practices use real-time and historical data along with robotics to make specific decisions for site-specific application in the field. This helps farmers in several ways, such as producing accurate diagnostics of individual areas or even individual plants, preventing crop damages from weather event, and controlling yield potential while reducing costs and environmental footprint.

Biography
Daeun (Dana) Choi is an assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering. She is located at UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC), Wimauma, FL. She earned B.S. degrees in Bio-mechatronics Engineering and Economics from Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea in 2011. She earned M.S. and Ph. D. degrees in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Florida in 2013 and 2017, specializing in precision agriculture technologies with artificial intelligence (AI). Before joining UF, she worked as an assistant professor at Penn State University from 2017 to 2021, and developed automated system for mushroom harvester, robotic fruit tree pruning and thinning, and apple yield forecasting using computer vision. Inspired by real-world challenges in agriculture, her research focuses on developing field robotics and AI specialized in precision agriculture to assist human operations in crop production with an emphasis on improving sustainability, productivity, and safety. Motivation of her research is to improve traditional farming practices for the optimal use of biological, time, and financial resources by designing low-cost field devices and machines through the newest data processing and automation techniques. Two significant research areas of her lab are: (1) intelligent sensors for accurately monitoring field variables in agriculture, and (2) automated multi-robot systems using drones, robots, data, and information and communications technology (ICT).