Interdisciplinary student team wins award at Farm Robotics Challenge
Project aims to scare deer away from farms to prevent crop loss
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/03/2025) — A team of computer science and mechanical engineering students from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities won the 2025 Excellence in Small Farm Technology award at the Farm Robotics Challenge, a national competition for college-level student teams tackling real-world agricultural problems using advanced robotics.
The University of Minnesota team’s design project, titled “FarmGuard’s Multi-Robot Deer Deterrence System,” aims to scare deer away from farms to prevent loss in crops.
The FarmGuard autonomous drone system helps farmers detect deer and deters them from eating the crops. This could increase the practicality of local farms, specifically targeting the needs of small, sustainable farms.
“One of the farmers who we worked with is losing, on average, 30 percent of his crops per year from deer,” said Mario Jerez, a computer science Ph.D. student and FarmGuard team member. “That really puts in perspective how big the problem is.”
What made this challenge unique was that the team reached out to farmers first to find everyday problems that they faced, before coming up with their idea of using the autonomous drone system.
“We weren’t a group of engineers trying to storm up ideas of what farmers might need help with, we were going out into the real world and using our knowledge to solve real problems,” said Greta Brown, a computer science student and FarmGuard team member.
The FarmGuard drone uses onboard cameras and computer vision algorithms to detect deer in real-time, during both day and night, and employs deterrents such as lights and speakers. It also uses optimized flight paths to maximize coverage while minimizing energy consumption. The team designed self-charging capabilities for continuous overnight protection.
Traditional deer deterrents like fencing and mesh are expensive and only moderately effective. The FarmGuard project seeks to provide a more reliable and cost-effective solution to protect crops from damage caused by deer.
“Understanding that the students needed to talk to real people to solve real problems was an important part of this challenge,” said Maria Gini, CSE Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and advisor for the project.
The team consisted of students from different academic disciplines working on hardware, computer vision, and path planning groups.
“I learned that no one person alone can solve the problem,” said Graham Wilson, a mechanical engineering student and FarmGuard team member. “It takes collaboration and division of work to take on something like this, put it together, and make something that works to solve the problem.”
With the Excellence in Small Farms Technology award, comes a $5,000 prize to support further testing and development of their project on real deer. The National AI Research Institute for Land, Economy, Agriculture & Forestry (AI-LEAF) provided the team with resources needed to build the drone for this challenge. The Minnesota Robotics Institute also helped with facilities and materials to support these drones.
Learn more about the project:
- FarmGuard website
- Farm Robotics Challenge website
- Department of Computer Science and Engineering’s website.
Story by Kalie Pluchel