About Me

I am a graduate student majoring in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at University of Folorida since 2023. I am a graduate research assistant in BSAIL Research Group, working with Dr.Changying Li and researching in agricultural robotics, automation, and deep learning-based perception techniques.

💻 Research Interests

  • Agricultural Robotics
  • Computer vision and deep learning
  • High-Throughput Phenotyping

📖 Educations

  • 2023.01 - 2024.12 (now), Graduate student, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Folorida, Gainesville, Folorida, USA
  • 2021.01 - 2022.12, Graduate research Assistant, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
  • 2016.09 - 2020.06, Undergraduate student, Mechanical Engineering, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China.

🔥 News

  • 2024.07:  🎉🎉 Presented Plot-scale Peanut Yield estimation project in ASABE 2024 !
  • 2024.07:  🎉🎉 won the first prize in AOCABFE student paper competition!
  • 2024.07:  🎉🎉 won the service and leadership award in AOCABFE (Student chair during Aguest 2023 - Auguest 2024)!
  • 2023.10:  🎉🎉 Presented Pheno-SAM project in IROS 2023 Agrobotic Workshop !
  • 2023.07:  🎉🎉 won the second prize in AOCABFE student oral presentation competition!
  • 2023.07:  🎉🎉 Presented robotic Blueberry phenotyping project in ASABE 2023 !!
  • 2023.04:  🎉🎉 Presented PhenoBot with visual navigation in AGAI conference 2023!
  • 2023.01:  🎉🎉 Joined BSAIL Research Group , Agricultural and Biological Engineering department, University of Florida!

💻 Projects

Robotic Crop Phenotyping

ASABE 2024
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Robotic Plot-scale Peanut Counting and Yield Estimation using Transformer-based Image Stitching and Detection

Zhengkun Li, Rui Xu, Changying Li*, Barry Tillman, Nino Brown

Paper Presentation

  • Robotic plot-scale image stitching based on LoFTR
  • Improved real-time RTDETR for peanut pod detection
  • SHAI inference for large-resolution Image
  • Peanut Yield comparison based on plot-scale counting
ASABE 2023
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Blueberry Yield Estimation Through Multi-View Imagery with YOLOv8 Object Detection

Zhengkun Li, Changying Li*, Rui Xu, Patricio Munoz

Paper Poster Presentation Github

  • Multi-view mobile platform for in-field blueberry phenotyping
  • YOLOv8 dedtector for blueberry detection
  • Blueberry yield evaluation with multi-view regression

Sim2Real Robotic Transfer: from simulation to reality

2023
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Dt/mars-cyclegan: Improved object detection for mars phenotyping robot

Liu, David, Zhengkun Li, Zihao Wu, Changying Li*

Project Paper Dataset

  • Digital twins for PhenoBot and agricultural field
  • DT-CycleGAN: generative agricultural field images
  • Zero-shot transfer to the real world dataset
ASABE 2022
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Simulation of an In-field Phenotyping Robot: System Design, Vision-based Navigation and Field Mapping

Zhengkun Li, Rui Xu, Changying Li*, and Longsheng Fu

Paper Poster Presentation

  • develop a phenotyping robot to perform field phenotyping tasks
  • design a vision-based navigation algorithm and evaluate its efficacy
  • explore the field mapping pipeline for 3D crop mapping in the field

Previous Projects

Course Project 2022
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[Robotic Arm for fruit sensing]

Zhengkun Li, Changying Li*

Report Video

  • ROS-based Kinova manipulator control
  • YOLO detector for fruit detectin
  • RGB-D camera for fruit localization
Innovation trainning 2018-2020
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Tomato grading system

Zhengkun Li, Qunming Liu, Jianxing Li, Yufei Lan, Gangying Shi* and Li Liu*

Paper1 Paper2 Poster Video1 test

  • Tomato grading platform with Delta manipulator and vacuum suction cup
  • Vision-based non-contact classification algorithm: maturity, size, shape.
  • QT-based Software interface
Agrobot competition 2017-2018
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Agriclture Harvesting Robot Competition

Xing Liang, Zhengkun Li, Yingchao Peng, Gangying Shi* and Yan Long*

Video

  • Wheeled base control with STM32 controller: line following control
  • Mechanical design for 5 DoF manipulator
  • OpenMV Board for fruit detection

📝 Publications & Conferences

  • Zhengkun Li, Rui Xu, Changying Li, Barry Tillman, and Nino Brown. “Robotic Plot-scale Peanut Counting and Yield Estimation using LoFTR-based Image Stitching and Improved RT-DETR.” In 2024 ASABE Annual International Meeting, p. 1. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2024.
  • Liu, David, Zhengkun Li, Zihao Wu, and Changying Li. “Dt/mars-cyclegan: Improved object detection for mars phenotyping robot.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.12787 (2023).
  • Zhengkun Li, and Changying Li. “Robotic Vegetable Production.” In Encyclopedia of Smart Agriculture Technologies, pp. 1-12. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023.
  • Zhengkun Li, Changying Li, and Patricio Munoz. “Blueberry Yield Estimation Through Multi-View Imagery with YOLOv8 Object Detection.” In 2023 ASABE Annual International Meeting, p. 1. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2023.
  • Zhengkun Li, Rui Xu, Changying Li, and Longsheng Fu. “Simulation of an In-field Phenotyping Robot: System Design, Vision-based Navigation and Field Mapping.” In 2022 ASABE Annual International Meeting, p. 1. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2022.
  • Liu, Li, Zhengkun Li, Yufei Lan, Yinggang Shi, and Yongjie Cui. “Design of a tomato classifier based on machine vision.” PloS one 14, no. 7 (2019): e0219803.
  • Liu, Li, Xinyu Li, Zhengkun Li, and Yinggang Shi. “Application of electronic nose in detection of fresh vegetables freezing time considering odor identification technology.” Chemical engineering transactions 68 (2018): 265-270.

    Patents

  • Zhengkun Li, Li Jianxing, Liu Qunming, etc. A fruit sorting and grabbing mechanism: China, 201821703500.1 [P]. May 14, 2019
  • Zhengkun Li, Liu Qunming, LAN Yufei, etc. An automatic fruit grading system: China, 201821703511.X [P]. July 5, 2019

🎖 Honors and Awards

  • 2024.07, won the Service and Leadership Award from the AOCABFE
  • 2024.07, won the first prize in the AOCABFE Student Paper competition
  • 2023.07, won the second prize in the AOCABFE Student Paper Presentation competition
  • 2023.01-present, Research Assistantship, University of Florida
  • 2022.07, won the first prize in the AOCABFE student Paper writing competition
  • 2021.01-2022.12, Research Assistantship, University of Georgia
  • 2018.12, won the first prize at Intelligent Agricultural Equipment Innovation (National level)
  • 2018.08, won the first prize at China Robot Competition (National level) - Harvesting robot Competition
  • 2016.09-2020.6, China National Inspiration Scholarship, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (Top 5%)
  • 2016.09-2020.6, First-order Major scholarship, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (Top 10%)

💬 Leaderships

  • 2023.08-2024.08, Chair of Student Activities Committee in Assiciation of OVerseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological and Food Engineering(AOCABFE
  • 2018.06-2019.12, Chair of Intelligent Agricultural Equipment Student Club.

💻 Professional Memberships

  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE)
  • American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE)
  • Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers (AOCABFE )