Pouya Sohrabipour, a biological and agricultural engineering master's degree student, was awarded first place in a U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded research poster competition earlier this month.

Sohrabipour was awarded as the lead author for his work on robotics at the 2024 AI in Agriculture Conference on April 15. The third annual event took place this year at Texas A&M University.

"Pouya's research focuses on the intersection of robotics and computer vision within the poultry industry," said Dongyi Wang, assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. "Specifically, his work aims to efficiently detect and segment chicken carcasses on conveyor belts, paving the way for the integration of vision systems into robotic arms for autonomous poultry processing, which is expected to streamline operations, reduce manual labor and enhance overall productivity in the poultry industry."

Wang, who is also part of the Food Science Department, served as a co-author on the study. The experiment station is the research arm of the U of A System Division of Agriculture.

Other co-authors of the work who were recognized at the conference included biological engineering Ph.D. student Siavash Mahmoudi, food science master's student Chaitanya Pallerla, biological engineering program technician Lee Schrader and mechanical engineering assistant professor Wan Shou.

This research was supported in part by a $1 million grant funded through a joint proposal between the National Science Foundation's National Robotics Initiative 3.0 and the United States Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. 

To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.uada.edu. 

About the Division of Agriculture: The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation's historic land grant education system. The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses. The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.