A fully automated spraying drone platform took the grand prize – a $20,000 Innovation Award sponsored by Farm-ng and Western Growers – in the third annual Farm Robotics Challenge awards ceremony on May 8 in Davis.
The 2025 Farm Robotics Challenge, hosted by the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), with support from technology partner Farm-ng, engaged students to tackle critical on-farm challenges such as labor shortages, sustainability and precision agriculture.
This year’s competition featured over 20 collegiate teams from across the U.S. and internationally. Participants leveraged Farm-ng’s Amiga modular robotic platform, drones and custom-built systems to address real-world problems identified in partnership with growers.
“The creativity and technical excellence displayed this year underscore agriculture’s bright future. These students aren’t just solving problems; they’re redefining what’s possible.” said Gabriel Youtsey, UC ANR chief innovation officer.
Winners were announced in six categories.
2025 Farm Robotics Challenge winners
- The Innovation Award, $20,000 prize sponsored by Farm-ng & Western Growers: Precision Horticulture Lab, the University of Georgia, created a robotic platform that enables spraying drone operations by serving as a mobile launchpad equipped with a water tank, chemical reservoirs, a mixer and a generator—all controlled via a cell phone.
Team advisors: Luan Oliveira, Ph.D.; Marcelo Barbosa, Ph.D.
Students: Regimar dos Santos, Victor Martins, Lucas Sales, João Santos, En’ya Touze, Mateus Naciben
- The Productivity Award, $10,000 prize sponsored by F3 Innovate: Team ʻĀINA, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, built a robot and drone system that identifies pineapple blooms and reconstructs their positions to optimize harvesting operations and improve labor efficiency, helping local commercial farm Dole Plantation overcome workforce shortages and sustain production.
Team advisor: Huaijin Chen, Ph.D.
Students: Rona Lei Duldulao, Lucas Horsman, Wilson Huynh, Erik Bendickson, Christian Komo, Zadon Padello, Mikhail Shkaralevich, Tyler Mak Excellence in Regenerative Agriculture, $5,000 prize sponsored by Taylor Farms: Appleseed Labs, Carnegie Mellon University developed Johnny B. Root, an autonomous robot that uses the Amiga mobile base, a robotic manipulator and a drilling mechanism to plant seedlings to reforest vast expanses of land, particularly marginal pastureland.
Team advisor: Francisco Yandun, Ph.D.
Students: William Heitman, Joyce Zhu, Rohan Walia, Ken Muangsiri, Alex Smith, Qimeng YuImage
The FarmGuard team at the University of Minnesota built a deer deterrence system, which uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to search for, detect and deter deer from farms, preventing them from damaging farmers’ crops. - Excellence in Smalls Farms Technology, $5,000 prize: FarmGuard, the University of Minnesota built a deer deterrence system, which uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to search for, detect and deter deer from farms, preventing them from damaging farmers’ crops.
Team advisor: Maria Gini, Ph.D.
Students: Mario Jerez, Sarah Boelter, Ebasa Temesgen, Sree Ganesh Lalitaditya Divakarla, Jack Swanberg, Haifeng Huang, Vaibhava Krishna Devulapalli, Greta Brown, Aryan Jaiswal, Horoom Bula, Jamie McArton, Graham Wilson, Serena Bovee, Musa Hassan, Sungmin Baik, Brianna Gallup, Tamojit Bera, Khoi Duong, Abhijit Gottumukkala, Raghav Anand
- Judges Choice Impact Award #1, $2,500 prize sponsored by Google.org: PURT UAS Team, Purdue University delivered an autonomous UAS tassel detection system that improves farm efficiency by identifying hotspots of tassels in corn fields, allowing farmworkers to target those areas for tassel removal, thus increasing the yield of hybrid corn seed farms.
Team advisor: James Goppert, Ph.D.
Students: Rohan Desai, Collin Hoffman, Chris Butler, Alex Perry, Tryston Espiritu, Aditya Sarwaikar, Aryana Desphande
- Judges Choice Impact Award #2, $2,500 prize sponsored by Google.org: The Salty Blue Hens, University of Delaware built a robot and drone system to automate soil salinity and moisture analysis by using drone-based gamma-ray spectral soil mapping to optimize in-field ground-based robotic soil sampling to reduce manual labor, increase soil mapping efficiency, and support precision agriculture for small to mid-sized coastal farms.
Team advisor: Yin Bao, Ph.D.
Students: Annamalai Muthupalaniappan, Harshal Salian, Michael Earley, Zhaofeng Tian, Ben Caro, Ashish Reddy M, Michael Acevedo, Martha Ryan, Dustin Stark, Brooklyn Harden, Joseph Scilla, Puranjit Singh, Talia McCann
This highly anticipated event marks the culmination of months of dedicated effort, as students showcase their innovative designs. More than $50,000 in prizes were awarded to top entries, with select teams earning travel stipends to attend the FIRA USA 2025 an agricultural robotics conference in Woodland on Oct. 21-23 and exclusive opportunities to pitch their ideas at the Plug and Play Tech Center Summit in June.
Farm-ng, the company behind the electric modular robot used in many of the entries, served as the technology partner for the challenge. The company also helped support the student experience, providing technical expertise, guidance and real-world insights.
“At Farm-ng, we believe the future of agriculture depends on collaboration between innovators, farmers and educators,” said Brendan Dowdle, CEO of Farm-ng. “Supporting the third annual Farm Robotics Challenge isn’t just about technology, it’s about empowering a generation to build tools that work for real people in real fields.”
This year student innovations featured both ground-based applications and aerial scouting.
“We added the drone category this year in recognition of the unique role this technology plays in precision agriculture now and into the future. UAVs can provide key data essential for decisions on fertilizer or pesticide input and apply them exactly where they're needed. This is an exciting and meaningful addition to the challenge,” said Steve Brown, Ph.D., associate director of the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems.
To view a recording of the Farm Robotics Challenge awards ceremony, visit https://youtu.be/Fm-6rhqNDL0.
The full list of competitors is displayed on the competition website farmroboticschallenge.ai.
About the Farm Robotics Challenge
The Farm Robotics Challenge is organized by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems, with support from technology partner and sponsor Farm-ng, as well as Western Growers, F3 Innovate, Beck’s Hybrids, Google.org, Taylor Farms, the California Tomato Research Institute, Linak, and Plug and Play. The competition challenges college-level teams to identify and solve real-world agricultural problems using advanced robotics technology.
For more information about the Farm Robotics Challenge, including details on how to participate or sponsor, visit https://farmroboticschallenge.ai.
About the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems
The AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS) is a USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture-funded research institute leveraging artificial intelligence to solve the world’s biggest challenges to crop and food production: ensuring a sustainable, nutritious, efficient and safe food supply while mitigating the impacts of changing conditions. For more information, visit https://aifs.ucdavis.edu.
About Farm-ng
Founded in 2020, Farm-ng is an agricultural robotics company supporting productivity and innovation in the field. Its flagship product, the Amiga is a modular, electric, open-architecture robot designed to serve small- and mid-sized farms, research institutions and developers. From crop care to data collection, Farm-ng empowers the ag community to solve today’s challenges and build tomorrow’s solutions. Farm-ng.com