Inaugural Field Day for ARPA-E’s “Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture” program set for June 2

May 22, 2016 |

In Washington, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and the University of Arizona will host a Field Day for the TERRA program, including live demonstrations of crop sensing and analytics platforms that will broadly advance our nation’s energy security, agricultural productivity, crop yields, and environmental stewardship. The event will be held at the University of Arizona’s Maricopa Agricultural Center in Maricopa, Arizona, and will feature l ARPA-E Director Dr. Ellen Williams and U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Under Secretary Dr. Ann Bartuska who will join University of Arizona officials to discuss the significance of these technologies and to highlight the importance of multi-sector collaborations.

The event will showcase how the ARPA-E TERRA program is integrating biology, engineering and computer science (“crops, bots, and bytes”) into an array of technologies that will accelerate development of bioenergy crops for the production of biofuels. In particular, the “Field Scanalyzer,” installed at the Maricopa Agricultural Center, is a unique robotic platform that measures and analyzes crop growth and development with unprecedented resolution, speed and accuracy. Other TERRA technologies – including ground- and air-based robots – will also demonstrate their approaches to plant sensing.

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Category: Research

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