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2024 – Celebrating another year of AgriFoRwArdS

2024 has been a year full of exciting opportunities, remarkable research, and interesting activities. To celebrate the wonderful achievements of our students and supervisors, we look back at just a few of the highlights of the year.

January

At the start of the year the AgriFoRwArdS Students all travelled to Lincoln to take part in the AgriFoRwArdS Seminar Series Day. The event took place at the end of January (24th to 26th), at the University of Lincoln’s beautiful Riseholme Campus, as part of the Lincoln Agri-Robotics (LAR) Mini-Conference, an exciting event focused entirely on agri-food robotics, with engaging sessions, insightful discussions, and valuable networking opportunities.

We heard from interesting speakers from across the domain of agri-robotics within the University of Lincoln, as well as keynote presentations from the Academic Leads of the new SUSTAIN CDT. We also held our Quarterly Research Progress Meeting, which gave those student’s who had just begun their PhD study the previous October, an opportunity to update on the first few months of their PhD study, and their plans moving forward. 

You can read more about the event here.

Also in January:

February

The transition from a taught MSc programme to autonomous PhD research can feel slightly overwhelming, and as much as students can be provided with information and resources to help with this transition, nothing compares to hearing from those who have actually lived it.

Each February the newest Cohort to join the CDT come together in an online student-led session to hear from those who are already in the midst of their PhD. The event gives a brief look into the transition to PhD life at each of the three universities, and allows our students to share thoughts and experiences with each other and to support each other through this process.

During the session Students had the opportunity to ask questions of their fellow students, and even learnt things they didn’t know they needed to know!

“The students running the session had prepared questions themselves, so once all of our questions had been answered, they continued with a quick-fire few minutes of answering their own questions. This was useful as we don’t know what we don’t know, and did not think to ask some of the questions they answered for us.”

Thank you to all our PhD students who engaged with this session to provide support for their fellow students.

Also in February:

March

The AgriFoRwArdS CDT is committed to embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) throughout its practices and as part of this the CDT is committed to upskilling our students. In March students undertook a series of workshops as part of a wider programme of EDI training and activities, which were run by the University of Cambridge EDI team.

The first of the two workshops focused on unconscious bias and aimed to provide students with an understanding of the origins of bias and stereotypes, and how to outsmart biases and overcome them to foster an inclusive working environment.

“I think that the seminar host was very knowledgeable, she covered EDI from so many different aspects and provided a very good overview of how we all have intrinsic biases that we are not aware of.”

The second workshop centred around intercultural communication. Students discovered the significant role culture plays in communication, collaboration and the working environment, and had the opportunity to learn strategies for developing the right skills to grow cultural intelligence.

“I really valued the piece on the speech styles, such as how long different cultures may take in their conversational pauses. It was quite insightful into how my own speech patterns shift when talking to people of different cultures. And possibly contributes to why I communication more difficult with some people compared to others.”

Also in March:

April

The students visited the National Centre for Food Manufacturing (NCFM), which is located at the University of Lincoln’s Holbeach Campus.

Students were met by CDT Co-Investigator and Deputy Head of School of Agri-food Technology and Manufacturing, Prof Mark Swainson, who gave them a tour of the facilities, including the Research and Development factory and the Centre of Excellence at the Holbeach Food Enterprise Zone.

The tour was followed by training covering topics including; food industry scale; opportunities for digitalisation; the future direction of food sector robotics; practical advice on working with the food manufacturing sector; and blending fundamental and applied research.

“My favourite part of the day was the session by Graham Purnell. He simply” told us about a load of cool projects he’s been involved with over the years. He had a brilliant way of speaking about the motivations of a project and how they were technically interesting. A very knowledgeable and accomplished guy in a very understated way. He led the session and took questions excellently.”

Also in April:

May

Cohort 5 students were invited to attend Riseholme Campus to undertake their ‘Introduction to Agriculture: Opportunities and Challenges’ training. These sessions provide an introduction to the role of current technologies in agriculture as well as hands on experience to help ground student research in real challenges and opportunities.

The sessions include;

Following classroom teaching students were then taken into the fields at Riseholme to apply what they have learnt, including a tour of the University’s working farm, which introduced students to the initiatives help shape the farm, along with seeing how technology and the use of big data allows Riseholme Campus to improve welfare for the animals and run the farm. 

The series of sessions was rounded off with CDT Mechatronics Engineer Rob Lloyd demonstrating the various robotics used at Riseholme. This gave students a good overview of how technology can be used within agriculture, which hopefully then inspired their MSc and PhD projects.

Also in May:

June

June was a busy month for AgriFoRwArdS Students, with site visits to both Dyson Farming and G’s Growers.

In early June the AgriFoRwArdS Students had the pleasure of visiting the Dyson Farming Estate in Carrington, Lincolnshire. Student’s began the day with talks from members of the Dyson Farming team. They were then given an overview and a tour of the Carrington glasshouse site and saw amazing research ongoing at the site. 

After visiting the Dyson Farming Estate, students then went on to visit the G’s farming facilities. The talks, and tour, given by the G’s staff finalised the 2024 AgriFoRwArdS Seminars Series events. The students then travelled to Cambridge in readiness for the Quarterly Research Progress Meeting, taking place the next day, at the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Department.

Read more about both visits in the July 2024 newsletter.

Also in June:

July

The AgriFoRwArdS CDT students travelled to Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands in early July for the annual AgriFoRwArdS Summer School, which this year was held in collaboration with WUR.

The Summer School saw CDT students and Wageningen students work together to focus on tasks within various aspects of the robotic phenotyping pipeline. They got to align with existing projects and research themes from within the CDT and WUR, and cover different processing steps like Active Robot Control, Data acquisition, Data integration/mapping, and Feature extraction. Days were filled with programming and development, socials, tours, and inspiring talks. The event kicked off with a welcome lunch, and concluded with presentations by each team, and a focus on the bigger picture of robotic phenotyping.

Read more about the AgriFoRwArdS Summer School in the July 2024 newsletter.

July was a busy month and following the Summer School the 5th AgriFoRwArdS CDT Annual Conference took place at the Enterprise Centre, UEA, from 21st – 23rd July 2024. On the theme of Robots in Action!, the conference featured speakers from both academia and industry and included both a workshop and presentation on topics relevant to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). 

Keynote speakers included Duncan Russell of Ocado Technology – with delegates also treated to an impressive video of the Ocado robots in the foyer – and Robin Wang of Living Optics, with many stories to tell from his experiences on the front line of venture capitalism. Other speakers included Becky Dodds of Agri-Tech-E, Trisha Toop of the UK Agri-Tech Centre, Louise Manning of the University of Lincoln, and Abigail Powell of the Eleanor Glanville Institute.

Read more about the AgriFoRwArdS Summer School in the July 2024 newsletter.

Also in July:

August

In August 2024 the AgriFoRwArdS Students and staff travelled to Brunel University in London to attend the Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems Conference (TAROS).

There were five papers, presented via posters by AgriFoRwArdS staff and students, across the three day conference, including Andy Perrett, James Heselden, Robert Stevenson, Omar Ali, and Dr Athanasios Polydoros. Prof Marc Hanheide, Director of the CDT, also attended as a keynote speaker.

In addition to this fantastic show of CDT student work, Robert Stevenson, Dimitris Paparas, Catherine Merchant, Benjamin Nicholls, Omar Ali, Emmanuel Soumo, and James Heselden, were joined by Wageningen University & Research PhD student David Rapado-Rincon for the PGR-ECR day on Friday 23rd August. AgriFoRwArdS, alongside other robotics CDTs from across the UK, came together to share their research with each other. With talks, discussion panels, and videos, the students, along with Marc Hanheide, gave delegates an interesting look into the work which took place as part of the AgriFoRwArdS Summer School this July, which took place in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research.

Read more about the TAROS experience here.

Also in August:

September

September saw the newest PhD students welcomed to their universities before beginning their PhD research.

On 24th September the Lincoln team and students came together for the Quarterly Research Progress Meeting and PhD tutorial. The event focused specifically on welcoming the Cohort 5 students to the PhD phase of their research at Lincoln and included discussion focused on the PhD experience at Lincoln, providing the Cohort 5 students with an introduction to the PhD, tips and tricks for succeeding, and some helpful insights into maintaining wellbeing as a PhD student. 

In Cambridge, the AgriFoRwArdS CDT members listened to student presentations, and new students received tips on how to handle the demands and needs of Cambridge PhD studies from other CDT students who were happy to share their experiences.

At East Anglia students met with Academic Lead Prof Richard Harvey to welcome the new students to Norwich, and share knowledge and experiences.

Read more about the welcome events in the October 2024 newsletter.

Also in September:

October

October saw the official start of the new academic year at all three institutions, and with that the commencement of the majority of the Cohort 5 PhDs in earnest!

University of East Anglia

The final three UEA students began their PhD journey with all three returning to their undergraduate alma mater following their MSc in Lincoln;

University of Lincoln

The PhD took off for six of the seven Lincoln Cohort 5 students;

Robbie Cato kicked off the final year of his MSc too, and we are looking forward to finding out more about his project in 2025. He will be starting his PhD next October, and will be working with Dr Francesco Del Duchetto and collaborating with The Douglas Bomford Trust.

University of Cambridge

Two students, Dimitris Paparas and Catherine Merchant, will be conducting their PhD research with support from the James Dyson Foundation, and Liyou Zhou‘s PhD proposal attracted the attention of Wayve, a London-based company focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology for self-driving cars. Omar Faris and Amanda Xu are also beginning their research at Cambridge, focused on tactile sensing and robotic manipulation respectively.

Also in October:

November

AgriFoRwArdS once again showcased at Agri-TechE’s REAP Conference, one of the premier events in the UK’s Agri-tech sector, which brings together key players to place farmers at the heart of innovation.

This year we were thrilled to be able to showcase several robotics innovations, including a dual robotic arm developed by RT Corporation, an AgriFoRwArdS industry partner. Yi Zhang attended the event to assist with the showcase as she works closely with RT Corporation’s robotics within her research. Calvin John, University of East Anglia AgriFoRwArdS student, also shared his research, which focuses on improving GNSS accuracy using purely visual techniques. 

Find out more about AgriFoRwArdS’ presence at REAP 2024 in the October 2024 newsletter.

Also in November:

December

We finished the year how it began, with everyone travelling back to Lincoln for the AgriFoRwArdS Seminar Series Day, the first of the 2024/25 academic year, and the Quarterly PhD Research Progress Meeting.

The two day event focused on developing the entrepreneurial skills of our students, with guest speakers Louise Sutherland (Agri-Tech Project Development Director, CERES) and Prof Simon Pearson (Head of School of Agri-Food Technology and Manufacturing, University of Lincoln) speaking about innovation communication with stakeholders and making the transition from student to running a business respectively. AgriFoRwArdS EDI Lead Prof Abigail Powell also got involved, running a workshop for students and staff focused on inclusive leadership.

We also had the opportunity to attend the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT) Breakfast Briefing, where Prof Simon Parsons (Professor of Machine Learning and Director of SUSTAIN CDT, University of Lincoln) and Dr Mercedes Torres Torres (Head of Machine Learning, B-Hive Innovations Ltd) discussed exploring the role of artificial intelligence in agriculture.

Amongst these talks we heard from those students who started their PhD study in October 2024, who gave their updates on the first few months of their PhD study, and their plans moving forward.

On the evening of day one we held our festive get together. Usually these events take place locally at each university, but we jumped at the chance of getting everyone together to celebrate the amazing achievements this year, and the wonderful community that AgriFoRwArdS had become.

Also in December:

We would like to thank all of our students for their continued hard work over the last year. The AgriFoRwArdS CDT are proud of each of you, and are looking forward to what you will do in 2025.

 This year has been full of opportunity for our students, and we can’t wait to see what 2025 holds! 

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