A rumbling robot and several high-flying drones recently made an on-site appearance at Clemson University to burrow through and buzz above 15 acres of experimental sorghum plots containing more than 2,800 replicated entries. The space-age devices – conceived and constructed by The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and commercial company Near Earth Autonomy – are part of a collaborative project with Clemson University and other partners designed to significantly enhance the ease and frequency of data collection for crop testing in ways that will eventually benefit all agricultural production in South Carolina and around the world.
