AECT/BAEG's Koparan, Students Present at ASABE Meeting; Robotics Club Competes

Several U of A students made presentations at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers while students with the Agricultural Robotics Club competed in the national contest.

Students in assistant professor Cengiz Koparan's Digital Agriculture Systems Technology Lab presented research, including:

• "UAV-Based Yield Prediction and Phenology-Structured Feature Learning in Blackberry," by Akwasi Tagoe, Ph.D. student in agricultural education, communications and technology;
• "Computer Vision-Based Early Red Rice Detection System Development for Mechanized Row Rice Farming," by Nurul Azmir, M.S. student in biological and agricultural engineering; and
• "UAV-Based Sensor Integration for In-Situ Lake Water Quality Monitoring," an honors senior in biological and agricultural engineering.

The Agricultural Robotics Club, advised by Koparan and Dongyi Wang, assistant professor in food science, participated in both the standard and advanced division competitions, showcasing design, fabrication, autonomy capabilities and system performance.

Chaitanya Kumar Reedy Pallerla built the robot for the advanced division while Azmir built the robot for the standard division. Other club members who assisted in building and writing reports were Tagoe, Alec Campbell, Sahunkuye Umuhoza and Yihong Feng.

U of A's standard division entry won the Best Written Report award out of 16 teams, and the advanced division entry was second in the Navigation category of the contest from among seven entries.

Koparan, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, organized and moderated the technical session "Advancements in Drone-Based Agricultural Sensing and Application" under the Machinery Systems committee.

ASABE is a member-driven nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing global well-being by addressing critical challenges in food security, water access and environmental sustainability.

About the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences: Bumpers College provides life-changing opportunities to position and prepare graduates who will be leaders in the businesses associated with foods, family, the environment, agriculture, sustainability and human quality of life; and who will be first-choice candidates of employers looking for leaders, innovators, policy makers and entrepreneurs. The college is named for Dale Bumpers, former Arkansas governor and longtime U.S. senator who made the state prominent in national and international agriculture. For more information about Bumpers College, visit our website, and follow us Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X at @BumpersCollege.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $2.2 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.