Phenorob - Robotics and Phenotyping for Sustainable Crop Production

Funding:

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 390732324

Start:

2026-01-01

End:

2032-12-31

Project Abstract:

PhenoRob performs world-leading research in robotics and phenotyping for sustainable crop production. Our vision is to transform crop production by optimizing breeding and farming management through developing and deploying new technologies. PhenoRob addresses a real-world problem with a technology-oriented approach. Our scientists have backgrounds in computer science, geodesy, robotics, plant science, soil science, economics, and environmental science. This interdisciplinary team forms the only DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence focusing on agriculture. In Phenorob, our group focuses on active perception for mapping and inspection. We have developed new methods for viewpoint planning to enable better fruit detection and volume estimation in Core Project 1 of Phenorob. In the interdisciplinary Open Call 2 project, we extend the methods developed in CP1 and investigate new methods for activce perception for horticulture actions using robotic manipulation.

Associated Researchers:

Prof. Dr.

Maren Bennewitz

Group Leader

M.Sc.

Rohit Menon

Ph.D. Student

M.Sc.

Niklas Mueller-Goldingen

Ph.D. Student

Associated Student Assistants:

B.Tech

Gokul Krishna Gandhi Chenchani

Student Assistant

SG-DOR: Learning Scene Graphs with Direction-Conditioned Occlusion Reasoning for Pepper Plants

R. Menon, N. Mueller-Goldingen, S. Pan, G.K.G. Chenchani, M. Bennewitz

Arxiv Pre-print, 2026

Pre-Print

EvidMTL: Evidential Multi-Task Learning for Uncertainty-Aware Semantic Surface Mapping from Monocular RGB Images

R. Menon, N. Dengler, S. Pan, G.K.G. Chenchani, M. Bennewitz

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025

Pre-Print Code

GO-VMP: Global Optimization for View Motion Planning in Fruit Mapping

A. Isaac Jose, S. Pan, T. Zaenker, R. Menon, S. Houben, M. Bennewitz

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025

Pre-Print Publication Code Video

Safe Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Behavior-Based Cooperative Navigation

M. Dawood, S. Pan, N. Dengler, S. Zhou, A. Schoellig, M. Bennewitz

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) and presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2025

Pre-Print Publication Code Video

Safe Leaf Manipulation for Accurate Shape and Pose Estimation of Occluded Fruits

S. Yao, S. Pan, M. Bennewitz, K. Hauser

IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation (ICRA), 2025

Pre-Print Publication Code Video

DM-OSVP++: One-Shot View Planning Using 3D Diffusion Models for Active RGB-Based Object Reconstruction

S. Pan, L. Jin, X. Huang, C. Stachniss, M. Popović, M. Bennewitz

Arxiv Pre-print, 2025

Pre-Print

Exploiting Priors from 3D Diffusion Models for RGB-Based One-Shot View Planning

S. Pan, L. Jin, X. Huang, C. Stachniss, M. Popović, M. Bennewitz

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024

Pre-Print Publication Code Video

HortiBot: An Adaptive Multi-Arm System for Robotic Horticulture of Sweet Peppers

C. Lenz, R. Menon, M. Schreiber, M.P. Jacob, S. Behnke, M. Bennewitz

IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2024

Pre-Print Publication Code Video

Research Priorities to Leverage Smart Digital Technologies for Sustainable Crop Production

H. Storm, S. Seidel, L. Klingbeil, F. Ewert, H. Vereecken, W. Amelung, S. Behnke, M. Bennewitz, J. Börner, T. Döring, J. Gall, A.-K. Mahlein, C. McCool, U. Rascher, S. Wrobel, A. Schnepf, C. Stachniss, H. Kuhlmann