Center for Digital Agriculture
NTU CIA – UIUC CDA Joint Seminar Series
Global Perspectives on Digital/Smart Agriculture
The Global Perspectives on Digital/Smart Agriculture joint webinar series is a collaborative effort between National Taiwan University and the Center for Digital Agriculture. This free series includes four different webinars featuring multiple presentations from digital agriculture experts that span throughout March and April. The series was developed with four principles in mind:
- Enhancing Global Perspectives on Digital Ag/Smart Ag by contributing to international engagement in sustainable agricultural technologies and digital transformation to align with larger global efforts.
- Fostering Bilateral Research Collaboration for scholars from various institutions to present and discuss research in smart agriculture, circular bioeconomy, controlled environment agriculture, and digital ag solutions.
- Building Engagement between faculty, students, researchers, and scientists that lead to fruitful interactions and exchanges.
- Exploring Future Partnerships by identifying mutual research interests, seeding informal faculty interactions, and establishing long-term collaborations, including co-developing new courses and funding student exchanges.
Featured Webinars, Presentations, and Speakers
March 12: Circular Bioeconomy Agriculture
Presentation Overviews
Speaker: Dr. Shu-Yuan Pan, Associate Professor, Department of Bioenvironmental Engineering, NTU
Talk Overview: This presentation will provide several on-going research direction on CBS at NTU towards agricultural net-zero transition. Notable examples include the value-added resource recovery from piggery wastewater, as well as integrated strategies on low-carbon emission paddy cultivation.
About Dr. Shu-Yuan Pan
Dr. Pan is currently an Associate Professor at Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, College of Bioresources and Agriculture, and the Vice Chief Executive Officer of the Agricultural Net Zero Technology and Management Innovation Research Center at NTU. He obtained his B.S. from the Department of Geography at NTU in 2009, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering at NTU in 2011 and 2016, respectively.
Speaker: Dr. Yuanhui Zhang, Founder Professor
Department of Agricultural
and Biological Engineering,
UIUC
Talk Overview: Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a promising method for converting wet biowaste into transportation fuels. This study demonstrates a circular bioeconomy pathway by producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from food waste. First, food waste was converted into biocrude in an HTL pilot reactor. The biocrude was then pretreated to remove impurities before undergoing catalytic upgrading to produce SAF. The resulting SAF was evaluated using FAA Tier α/β tests and met ASTM specifications, confirming its jet fuel properties, including density, viscosity, flash point, and freeze point.
About Dr. Yuanhui Zhang
Professor Zhang is a Founder Professor in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), with affiliations in Bioengineering and Mechanical Science and Engineering. A Fellow of ASABE and ASHRAE, his research advances hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) technology to convert wet biowaste—such as food waste, sewage sludge, and algae—into biocrude oil. His lab has successfully developed a pathway to upgrade HTL biocrude into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and other biochemicals, contributing to the development of renewable energy solutions.
Speaker: Dr. Chien-Fang Ding, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, NTU
Talk Overview: This presentation explores the potential of biomass, particularly focusing on leaves, as a sustainable material for electronic devices, contributing to the growing field of green electronics and aligning with the principles of Circular Bioeconomy Agriculture. The research demonstrates the fabrication of biodegradable, flexible conductors using leaf skeletons and PEDOT:PSS-based hybrid ink for wearable devices. The presentation will showcase the successful application of the biodegradable conductors in Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal recording and finger bending tests, highlighting their potential for sustainable wearable biomedical devices. By utilizing agricultural waste and promoting biodegradability, this research contributes to a circular economy and reduces electronic waste.
About Dr. Chien-Fang Ding
Prof. Ding currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomechatronics Engineering at NTU and the teaching section leader in the Center for Intelligent Agriculture Education and Research, Taipei, Taiwan. His research team comprises 1 doctoral student, 9 master’s students, and 5 undergraduate students. The team is dedicated to interdisciplinary integrative research, synthesizing expertise from mechanical engineering, optoelectronics, biomedical engineering, and materials science. Their research scope is focused on three primary domains: research initiatives encompassing biomedical sensing, industrial applications, and agricultural innovation.
Speaker: Dr. Roger Ruan, Professor and Director
Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, and Center for Biorefining,
University of Minnesota
Talk Overview: Efficient wastewater management is essential for clean water access, pollution reduction, and a circular economy. Municipal and animal wastewater contain valuable resources that can support energy recovery and nutrient recycling. This presentation explores innovative technologies for maximizing resource recovery, including enhanced anaerobic digestion to boost methane and fertilizer production, microalgae cultivation for nutrient and contaminant removal, hydroponic systems for further pollutant reduction, and biochar conditioning for contaminant elimination. These integrated solutions provide a sustainable and scalable wastewater treatment model with significant economic and environmental benefits.
About Dr. Roger Ruan
Dr. Ruan, University of Minnesota, is widely recognized for his research in biomass and solid waste conversion, including plastic waste pyrolysis and gasification for the production of chemicals, materials, fuels, and energy. His work extends to innovative wastewater treatment and utilization solutions, airborne pathogen disinfection, catalytic non-thermal plasma, microwave and photocatalytic technologies, and food engineering advancements. Most recently, Dr. Ruan was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (Class of 2025).
March 19: Controlled Environment Agriculture
Presentation Overviews
Speaker: Dr. Wei Fang, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, NTU
Talk Overview: Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) has great development potential. Based on the rapid increase in population and the three major problems currently faced by the environment, resources, and pollution, it is estimated that the population will reach 9 billion in 2050, 70% of which will live in urban areas. These subjective and objective conditions make it imperative to develop agriculture in a broad sense including crop production, fisheries, animal and insect breeding in urban areas. CEA also has different names in different regions, including greenhouses, plant factories, vertical farms, urban agriculture, indoor agriculture, etc. Marijuana is by far the most profitable crop, with medicinal and recreational use already legal in some areas. Secondly, strawberries produced in large quantities throughout the year; value-added vegetables, flowers, medicinal crops, etc. are also valued. The mass production of plant factories/vertical farms combined with the use of renewable energy and the recycling of agricultural waste materials is not only sustainable, but also efficient and less polluting, and has become an important solution to the future food crisis.
About Dr. Wei Fang
Wei Fang is Professor (and Head) Emeritus, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, National Taiwan University. He is a consultant to many companies and farmers’ associations in Taiwan, Southeast Asia, middle-East and China, and is a project leader on agricultural automation and controlled environment plant production systems and aquaculture projects. He has authored or co-authored more than 130 articles, 113 technical papers, and presented 250 papers at global workshops and conferences. He has co-authored 16 textbooks and translated three “Plant Factory”-related books, published in 2011 and 2012. He is also one of the international consultants of the Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA). He is also the chief consultant of the Chinese Plant Factory Association (CHPFA).
Speaker: Dr. KC Ting, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, UIUC
Talk Overview: Intelligent indoor plant production systems (IIPPS) are viewed as one of the key forms of modern and futuristic agriculture. Advanced indoor plant production is known by several names including controlled environment agriculture (CEA), vertical farming, and plant factories. Precision indoor plant production has high readiness levels for implementing machine capabilities of perception, reasoning/leaning, communication, task planning/execution, and systems integration. Systems (of systems) approach is highly effective in guiding critical and creative thinking processes in enhancing informatics, analysis/modeling, and decision support to provide actionable insights. This presentation describes fundamentals of machine intelligence and systems (of systems) approach, as well as their applicability to indoor plant production. The timely topics of circular bioeconomy systems relevant to IIPPS will also be discussed.
About Dr. KC Ting
K.C. Ting is Professor (and Head) Emeritus, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He was Vice Dean of International Campus, Zhejiang University (2017-2020). He has been leading research teams to develop and implement the pioneering Automation-Culture-Environment oriented Systems (ACESys) analysis methodology, Concurrent Science, Engineering, and Technology (ConSEnT) decision support platform, and Intelligent Driven and Empowered Agricultural Systems (IDEAS) framework to make food and agriculture systems work well, better, together, smarter, and wiser. He has delivered over 145 invited presentations in 17 countries. He was an Editor-in-Chief for Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. He has participated in establishing international collaborative education, research, and administrative programs between institutions in the U.S. and countries in Asia, Europe, Middle East, South America, and Africa. He is Fellow of ASME and Fellow of ASABE.
Speaker: Dr. Chen-Kang Huang, Professor and Director, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, and Center for Intelligent Agriculture Education and Research, NTU
Talk Overview: Through multiple sensors and smart control, the growth of crops inside a precision greenhouse can be predicted, the infected rate can be reduced, and the total energy consumption can be minimized.
About Dr. Chen-Kang Huang
Prof. Huang is currently a Professor at Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Intelligent Agriculture Education and Research at NTU. He obtained his B.S. from the Department of Agricultural Machinery Eng. at NTU in 1995, and his M.S. from Mechanical Eng. at NTU in 1997, and Ph.D. from Mechanical Eng., the university of California at Berkeley in 2004. His researches include thermal science/ energy, smart/ sustainable agriculture, and CEA.
Speaker: Dr. Paul Davidson, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, UIUC
Talk Overview: Controlled-environment food production is emerging as an alternative to outdoor production, specifically in areas where the natural climate is more hostile to the desired production and where there is demand for more locally grown food options. Wastewater has historically been viewed as simply a waste byproduct, with little to no value to add to the system. However, wastewater is gaining interest because of its ability to provide nutrients that may be beneficial to the growth of plants. This presentation will provide an overview of work focused on treating wastewater from a hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) process. The wastewater contains relatively high levels of nitrogen, but in organic compounds that are not accessible to plants. Therefore, chemical and biological treatment approaches are being explored to convert organic nitrogenous compounds into inorganic forms like ammonia and nitrate. The treated wastewater is then being evaluated as a feed source for growing plants in a CEA system.
About Dr. Paul Davidson
Dr. Davidson is an Associate Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Davidson grew up on a farm in rural Illinois before completing his B.S. (2005), M.S. (2007), and Ph.D. (2010) degrees in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from UIUC. He then spent 4 years in environmental consulting, researching and monitoring the fate and transport of agricultural pesticides from nonpoint sources of pollution, before returning to academia. Dr. Davidson’s research now broadly focuses on water quality. More specifically, his research addresses a growing interest in treating and recycling wastewater for use in hydroponic systems. The primary challenges of this research are capturing and preserving the nutrients in the wastewater while removing potentially toxic compounds.
April 9: Smart Agriculture in Animals
Presentation Overviews
Speaker: Dr. En-Chung Lin
Talk Overview: This study was conducted at the commercial breeding herds in Taiwan to evaluate lameness in gilts and sows using kinetic and kinematic analyses. Gait data, ground reaction forces and joint angles were assessed through pressure mat and video measurements to identify structural abnormalities, even not obvious, affecting locomotion in breeding pigs.
About Dr. En-Chung Lin
2012~ Associate Professor, Dept. of Anim. Sci. & Tech., NTU.
2004~2012 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anim. Sci. & Tech., NTU.
1997~2004 Associate Research Fellow, Animal Technology Institute Taiwan
1990~1997 Research Assistant, Dept. of Anim. Sci. & Computation Center, Iowa State Univ.
1992~1997 Ph.D., Dept. of Anim. Sci. & Dept. of Statistics, Iowa State Univ.
1990~1992 M.S., Dept. of Anim. Sci. & Dept. of Statistics, Iowa State Univ.
Speaker: Dr. Angela Green-Miller, Associate Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, UIUC
Talk Overview: TBD
About Dr. Angela Green-Miller
TBD
Speaker: Dr. Yan-Fu Kuo, Professor, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, NTU
Talk Overview:
Food security is always one of the top priorities globally. As estimated by the United Nations, the global population will reach 9.7 billion in 2050. However, food production is facing issues of labor shortage and workforce aging. Nowadays, few in the young generation are willing to work in agriculture because of the harsh working environments and disproportionate wages. Conventional, the observation of animal conditions relies on manual observation. This is because the environments for animal husbandry are usually complex. However, manual observation is labor-intensive and may be subjective. To solve this problem, machine vision is applied for managing animal farms. This speech introduces the current status of the machine vision applications to animal husbandry in Taiwan. Several examples of the applications are given in the speech.
About Dr. Yan-Fu Kuo
Yan-Fu Kuo is a Professor in the Department of Biomechatronics Engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU). He received his Bachelor degree in Agriculture Machinery Engineering at NTU, and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, U.S.A.
After graduation from Purdue University, he became an Assistant Professor at NTU in 2011. His research interests include machine vision and automation in agriculture. Some of his current research topics include crop disease and pest identification using smart phones, wood species recognition using smart phones, shrimp length measurement using underwater system, and behavior monitoring of husbandry animals. Yan-Fu has published in journals such as ‘Computers and Electronics in Agriculture’, ‘Biosystems Engineering’, and ‘The Transactions of ASABE’. By far, he has published more than 30 journal articles as well as more than 60 papers in conference proceedings. Yan-Fu is currently an associate editor for ‘The Transactions of ASABE’. He teaches Machine Learning and Microcontrollers at NTU. He received outstanding teaching award from NTU twice. Yan-Fu has supervised more than 50 graduate and undergrad students and received more than 20 funded projects in the past ten years. Yan-Fu participated in 2019 class of the CIGR Next Leaders Event.
Talk Overview:
The integration of digital technologies in animal agriculture is revolutionizing how we monitor, manage, and optimize livestock systems. Precision management of animals leverages real-time data from sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation to enhance decision-making, improve animal welfare, and increase production efficiency. This talk will explore the core definition of precision animal management, emphasizing its role in shifting from broad-based herd management to individualized animal care.
While the benefits of precision management are vast—including improved health monitoring, optimized feeding strategies, and enhanced environmental sustainability—several challenges hinder widespread adoption. Issues such as data integration across diverse sensor platforms, AI model reliability, the cost of implementation, and producer trust in digital solutions must be addressed to maximize impact.
Beyond these challenges, new opportunities are emerging through advancements in machine learning, computer vision, and decision-support systems. As digital agriculture continues to evolve, the future of precision animal management will rely on interdisciplinary collaboration, scalable technologies, and farmer-friendly solutions that translate complex data into actionable insights. This presentation will provide a global perspective on the current state of precision animal management with research examples, key barriers to adoption, and promising innovations shaping the next generation of smart livestock production.
About Dr. Isabella Condotta
Dr. Condotta is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois Ubana-Champign. With almost 14 year of research experience, she focus on reducing animal stress, improving animal well-being and environmental sustainability, and helping farmers make better and more efficient management decisions by developing precision management systems for animals. Her interdisciplinary research applies advanced technologies, such as image and audio processing and machine learning algorithms, to acquire and analyze individual animals’ electronic data, allowing continuous and automatic monitoring of their behavior, health, and well-being.
April 30: Smart Agriculture in Crops
Presentation Overviews
Speaker: Dr. Hsiao-Mei Wu, Associate Professor, Department of Biomechatronics Engineering, NTU
Talk Overview: Developing reliable quantitative methods for early detection of plant stress is a critical challenge in agricultural phenotyping. Traditional methods that rely on fluorescence intensity to estimate photosynthetic efficiency are often subject to noise. In contrast, fluorescence lifetime, which is sensitive to molecular states and environmental conditions, can reveal early physiological changes in plants. This presentation introduces the novel FD-FLI system, which was developed to characterize the photosynthetic efficiency of leaves under abiotic stress. Due to its high sensitivity, the system holds promise for long-term, non-invasive monitoring of plant health in the early stages.
About Dr. Hsiao-Mei Wu
Professor Wu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomechatronics Engineering at NTU. Her research interests include the development of optomechatronic systems for applications in agriculture and biotechnology, including the use of fluorescence lifetime imaging systems to measure the photosynthetic efficiency of leaves and characterize oxygen effects on plant roots. In addition, their research groups combine several AI-based image analysis techniques with optomechatronic systems to automatically monitor cells/plants and further reconstruct the three-dimensional cells/plants.
Speaker: Dr. Cody Allen, Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, UIUC
Talk Overview: TBD
About Dr. Cody Allen
TBD
Talk Overview:
In crop production, harvesting, and post-harvest handling, traditional methods rely heavily on human labor for monitoring and decision-making. However, the shortage of skilled experts and declining labor availability present challenges. Image-based plant phenotyping offers a transformative solution by automating crop trait identification and documentation, reducing reliance on manual assessment. ntegrating IoT sensors, autonomous vehicles, image processing, spectral sensing, and AI algorithms enables expert-level decision-making with greater efficiency. This presentation explores how these technologies enhance agricultural practices, with case studies in vegetables, fruits, and coffee covering crop monitoring, pest detection, harvest forecasting, quality grading, and flavor prediction. These innovations optimize labor use and provide new insights into food flavor science.
About Dr. Shih-Fang Chen
Dr. Shih-Fang Chen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomechatronics Engineering at NTU. She earned her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Chen’s research specializes in the application of image processing and spectral analysis techniques for plant status monitoring and agricultural product quality evaluation. Her work is centered on the advancement of smart agriculture through the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance precision farming methodologies. Her research portfolio encompasses a diverse range of agricultural applications, including plant disease identification, harvest time prediction, agricultural product grading, pesticide residue detection, and flavor prediction systems. She has served as a Guest Editor for Special Issues of Computers and Electronics in Agriculture. She currently holds the position of Associate Editor for Engineering in Agriculture, Environment and Food.
Speaker: Dr. Nicolas Martin, Associate Professor, Crop Sciences, UIUC
Talk Overview: This presentation delves into a multiyear, on-farm investigation of spatially variable corn yield responses to nitrogen fertilizer. Using high-resolution management zone maps and site-specific soil, topographic, and weather data, researchers applied randomized nitrogen rates across hundreds of subplots at seven locations in Illinois from 2016 to 2021. A random forest algorithm revealed that weather-driven variability was the dominant factor influencing yield responses, overshadowing expected patterns based on soil properties and topography. Temporal inconsistency further highlighted how certain plots that responded positively to higher nitrogen rates in one season did not necessarily do so in subsequent years. These findings underscore the need for more robust temporal data collection and real-time sensing methods to enhance predictive accuracy, refine zone delineation approaches, and ultimately guide adaptive nitrogen management in precision agriculture.
About Dr. Nicolas Martin
Dr. Martin improves long-term profitability and stability of cropping systems by exploring applications of quantitative methods on big data. He leverages interdisciplinary efforts to expand the frontiers of agricultural research; investigates quantitative methods on processes at multiple spatial and temporal scales; and studies effective approaches to implement new insights and discoveries in agricultural decisions and operations.