AI-AgARENA: Advancing AI for Climate-Smart Agriculture

A national, multi-site AI-ready testbed enabling cutting-edge research in cyber-agricultural systems for sustainable farming, climate resilience, and food security.

'AI-ready Cyber-Agricultural Systems Testbed (AI-AgARENA)' seeks to develop an AI-ready cyber-agricultural system that enables AI research for climate-smart agriculture by integrating autonomous farm management, continuous real-time sensing of soil and plant conditions and weather parameters, and intelligent data harvesting for analysis and visualization. AI-AgARENA is a multi-state, multi-site AI-ready farming testbed that integrates and enhances existing agricultural research platforms—complemented with wireless networking, sensors, ground robots, and drones—to develop and validate AI tools for cyber-agricultural systems.

Partner Institutions

About AI-AgARENA

A Multidisciplinary Collaboration for Agricultural Innovation

Our Team

AI-AgARENA brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary team of experts including plant scientists, agronomists, AI specialists, roboticists, wireless communications experts, cyberinfrastructure and cybersecurity professionals, designers, extension staff, education experts, and entrepreneurs from three leading research universities.

Foundation Projects

Our team leads several major federally funded projects that provide the foundation for AI-AgARENA:

COALESCE: NSF CPS Frontier grant on sustainable agriculture focusing on context-aware learning for cyber-agricultural systems
AIIRA: National AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture at Iowa State University
ICICLE: National AI Institute at Ohio State with significant agricultural applications focus
ARA: NSF PAWR platform providing 5G-and-beyond wireless living lab connectivity to agriculture farms
CyVerse: Scalable cyberinfrastructure platform for collaborative data-driven discovery

Project Leadership

Dr. Soumik Sarkar

Principal Investigator

Iowa State University

AI & Machine Learning, Cyber-Physical Systems

Dr. Nirav C. Merchant

Co-Principal Investigator

University of Arizona

Cyberinfrastructure, Data Science

Dr. Asheesh K. Singh

Co-Principal Investigator

Iowa State University

Plant Science, Agronomy

Dr. Christopher Stewart

Co-Principal Investigator

Ohio State University

Sustainable Computing, Systems

Dr. Hongwei Zhang

Co-Principal Investigator

Iowa State University

Wireless Communications, Networking

Testbed Infrastructure

AI-AgARENA integrates cutting-edge physical and cyber infrastructure across multiple sites, covering diverse crops, geographies, soils, and climates.

Physical Infrastructure

Iowa State Core Facility

40+ acres of dedicated agricultural research farm with comprehensive capabilities:

Ground robots (Amiga) with 360° cameras
Hyperspectral, thermal, and multispectral imaging
440V power substation and solar hybrid systems
5G connectivity through ARA wireless living lab

ISU Digital Ag Innovation Lab

A globally unique living lab conducting production system research on 1,000+ acres annually:

High technology readiness level (TRL) testing facility
35+ annual contracts with private industries
90+ patents and technology transfer licenses
60+ fully commercialized AgTech products

UA Field Scanner

World's largest and most advanced automated phenotyping system:

30-ton robotic gantry system
Generates 2-6 terabytes of data per day
High-quality camera and sensor suite
Open-source control software for custom sensor integration

UA Yuma Farms

500+ acres for diverse crop research:

Valley Farm (274 acres): cotton, grains, vegetables
Mesa Farm (240 acres): citrus production
140-mile fiber network via Sun Corridor Network
26 wireless towers enabling county-wide smart farming

OSU Molly Caren Center

2,100-acre facility for corn, soybeans, and wheat:

Private 4G network (upgrading to 5G by Spring 2026)
Download speeds: 150 Mbps, Latency: 60ms
Support for vision-based autonomous vehicles and drones
Focus on computational approaches for yield, resilience, sustainability

Cyberinfrastructure

ARA Wireless Living Lab

First-of-its-kind wireless connectivity for precision agriculture:

Coverage: 60+ km diameter across ISU campus, Ames, and rural areas
Low-UHF massive MIMO to mmWave wireless access
Long-distance backhaul and free-space optical communications
Low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite communications

CyVerse Infrastructure

Integrated cyberinfrastructure for data-driven discovery:

Federated data store for managing edge device and sensor data
Kubernetes-based Discovery Environment with GPU support
Data workbenches (Jupyter) and workflow managers (Argo, Nextflow)
AI-VERDE: Metered API access to commercial and open-source LLMs

Shared Software & Data Practices

Software:

Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Terraform and Ansible templates
ML/AI tools: MLFlow, Ray, DVC, Datachain
Frameworks: PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow
CACAO platform for easy template management

Data:

Croissant standard for machine-readable metadata
Discoverable via Google Dataset Search
FAIR and CARE standards compliance
AR/VR visualization for immersive data exploration

Data & Model Governance

Comprehensive governance framework:

Strict authentication and authorization enforcement
Audit and tracking tools for data and model usage
Enhanced tagging for improved data discovery
Link validity checking and duplicate detection

Get Involved with AI-AgARENA

Join our growing community of researchers, students, industry partners, and stakeholders shaping the future of AI-driven agriculture.

AI Researchers

Access our multi-site testbed for developing and validating AI algorithms and tools. Leverage state-of-the-art sensing platforms, robotics, and data infrastructure for your research projects. Join our network of guest researchers beta-testing cutting-edge agricultural AI applications.

Agricultural Scientists

Collaborate on research integrating domain expertise with advanced AI capabilities. Access comprehensive data collection, analysis tools, and visualization platforms to advance plant breeding, crop management, and sustainable farming practices.

Students & Educators

Participate in internships, coursework, and hands-on training programs. Engage with Farmverse VR learning experiences. Access educational resources and workshops spanning K-12 through graduate levels, building skills for the future agricultural workforce.

Industry Partners

Collaborate on technology development, testing, and commercialization. Access facilities for product validation and stakeholder demonstrations. Partner on research projects ranging from prototypes to high-TRL commercial applications in AgTech innovation.

Farmers & Extension

Participate in guided demonstrations of climate-smart farming technologies. Provide feedback on practical applications and real-world needs. Engage in extension programs designed to improve adoption of AI-driven agricultural practices.

Government & Policy

Partner with us to ensure AI-AgARENA provides valuable tools for the farming community while maintaining data privacy and security. Collaborate on developing safe AI research practices and guidelines for agricultural technology deployment.

Planning Workshops & Community Engagement

We regularly organize workshops, seminars, and webinars to engage the broader AI and agricultural communities. Join our mailing list and participate in upcoming events to help shape the future of AI-AgARENA and contribute your expertise to this national effort.

News & Events

AI-AgARENA Testbed Planning Workshop

Thank you for your interest in our upcoming AI-AgARENA Testbed Planning Workshop at Iowa State University. This event will bring together researchers, industry partners, and technology builders to shape the future of AI-driven agricultural innovation.

Event Details

Date: Friday, November 7, 2025

Time: 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM

Location: Iowa State University, Ames, IA

Nearest Airport: Des Moines International Airport (DSM), Des Moines, IA

Workshop Highlights

Welcome & Keynote: Opening remarks by Dr. Soumik Sarkar and a presentation from Rick van de Zedde (Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands).
Use-Case Breakouts: Explore themes such as Algorithms, Hardware, Networking/Wireless, and Agricultural Applications. Share challenges and use cases to guide testbed development.
Collaborative Planning: Work together to identify impactful ideas, discuss infrastructure needs, and plan next steps for the AI-AgARENA testbed.
Networking & Lunch: Engage in discussions on financial planning and builder contributions.
Closing Session: Website launch and roadmap for continued involvement.

This workshop is an opportunity to influence the design and capabilities of a cutting-edge agricultural AI testbed and we greatly appreciate your participation. Your insights will help ensure the platform meets real-world needs and accelerates innovation.

Important: Please let us know about your dietary and accommodation needs by completing the registration form by Friday, October 31, 2025.

We look forward to your participation in shaping the future of AI in agriculture!

Participants

Name	Organization
Hari Subramoni	Ohio State University
David R. Krog	Salin 247, Inc.
Saeed Arabi	Salin 247, Inc.
Rick van de Zedde	Wageningen University and Research, Plant Science Group
Scott Shearer	Ohio State University
Liang Dong	University of Georgia
Sajal Dasa	Missouri S&T
Connor Osgood	University of Arizona YCEDA
Zhi-Li Zhang	University of Minnesota
Eman Ramadan	University of Minnesota
Ce Yang	University of Minnesota
Jiangfeng Zhou	University of Missouri
Jasmine Neupane	University of Missouri
Mebla Crawford	Purdue University
Xiaomao Lin	Kansas State University
Kiju Lee	Texas A&M University

Contact Us

Have questions or want to collaborate?

Email: aiagarena@iastate.edu

Location: Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011