Time: 3-4 pm Eastern Time, Mar 13 (Friday), 2026

Location: MSEE 112

Zoom Link: https://purdue-edu.zoom.us/j/95468302127

Coffee and snacks will be provide.

From Robotic Apple Harvesting to Physical AI for Agriculture

Abstract:

Labor shortages in specialty crop agriculture are driving growing interest in robotic harvesting, yet reliable operation in complex orchard environments remains challenging due to occlusions, variable lighting, and clustered fruit. In this talk, I will present our recent work on multi-arm robotic systems for autonomous apple harvesting. Our approach integrates compact harvesting manipulators, soft suction-based end-effectors, and AI-enabled perception and planning to enable fast and gentle fruit picking in real orchard environments. I will also discuss future opportunities for agricultural robots as physical AI platforms for harvesting, pruning, precision spraying, and orchard data intelligence. In addition, I will highlight our recent work on cloud-facilitated privacy-preserving collaborative sensing and control.

Speaker:

Dr. Zhaojian Li is a Red Cedar Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Michigan State University. He obtained M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2015) in Aerospace Engineering (flight dynamics and control) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Li worked as an algorithm engineer at General Motors from January 2016 to July 2017. His research interests include Optimal Control and Machine Learning, with applications to Robotics and Connected Automated Vehicles. He is the author of more than 80 top journal articles and several patents. He is currently the Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Control System Technology, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, and ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement. His research has been funded by National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, US Department of Agriculture, Army, Office of Naval Research, Ford, DENSOR, T-Mobile, among others. He is a senior member of IEEE and the recipient of 2025 ASME DCSD Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the 2021 NSF CAREER award, 2023 ASABE Engineering Concept of the Year Award, and several Best Paper awards.

Organizers: Ziran Wang (ziran@purdue.edu), Yan Gu (yangu@purdue.edu), Yu She (shey@purdue.edu)