Progress report for FNC25-1475
Project Information
Jerome Natzel
Jerome, a graduate of SDSU, is a professional mechanical engineer with 50 years of experience and has been involved with the family farm for over 40 years. His engineering firm was involved in designing the CHS High Yield Greenhouse, Monsanto Seed Lab and Syngenta Seed Lab.
He designed for Bushel Boy Farms' hydroponics environmental systems and tomato processing, and for vertical farming. He created UV systems for greenhouses to control pathogens for food safety. His firm has also designed and had installed UV tube lights in process areas at Hormel and Austin Packaging Company.
He will head up this project with regards to the conceptualization, design, layout, fabrication, and scheduling of the UV light treatment robotic system.
Jerome’s Farm
His next generation specialty farm is being designed and built as a high value added farm vs. a commodity crop farm. A farm winery/distillery is being designed with “climate change” and low environmental impact in mind using solar energy with battery storage. The farm uses an autonomous Japanese Beetle ground drone (FNC20-1240).
His family farm is 42 acres with 36 tillable acres and is a “rural farm in an urban setting” on the eastern border of Owatonna, Minnesota. The farm has been in the family since 1947. The remaining 12.5 acres of tillable land has been planted into vineyard over the last sixteen growing seasons as of 2025.
Craig Converse
Craig is a vineyard owner and winemaker near Brookings, SD. Craig graduated from SDSU with a Masters in Agronomy (plant breeding and genetics). He was a manager for Syngenta before moving back to SD to run his family’s farm. The vineyard is approximately two acres and expanding each year. Craig will provide vineyard for testing and make suggestions on design improvements and functionalities. Craig just finished building a winery at his farm.
Jim Schade
Jim is a viticulturist for four SD vineyards including Schade Vineyard & Winery in Volga, SD. Jim acted as the lead citizen lobbyist for the original South Dakota winery committee to get the laws changed to allow farm wineries. Jim and his wife, Nancy, founded Schade Vineyard & Winery on eight acres in 2000. Jim is also a SDSU graduate. Dillon Ringling is the new owner of Schade Vineyard & Winery and he is also a graduate of SDSU.
Jim will provide vineyard for testing and make suggestions on design improvements and functionalities.
Treatment of grape vines for fungus diseases is essential for crop production of grapes and for the health of the grapevine plant itself. Grape production greatly decreases with the existence of damaging funguses. Many of the funguses will eventually kill the plant.
Powdery Mildew and Downy Mildew and other fungal diseases can become resistance to fungicides even if different chemicals are rotated every year or during the growing season. Cost of chemicals are ever increasing and cutting into the bottom line of the grape grower but an electrical powered solution is more cost effective.
The proposed UV-C tunnel can also be used in other trellised berry fields and trellised dwarf apple orchards to control fire blight. This project will concentrate on grapes.
Safety of vineyard workers and people’s health is the highest concern when fungicides are handled and sprayed. Less chemical use means less damage to the environment. For example, a traditional sprayer used on 12 acres will add 11.1 tons CO2 of greenhouse gas into the environment per year spraying fungicides.
Test Platform - Controls Study Concept Autonomous Vehicle
The solution is to build an autonomous UV light treatment robotic system from scratch which will run at night. This machine will reduce the need for and amount of spray fungicides into the environment by 80%. It will also lessen fungicide resistance in the vineyard. This amount is based on a study by Cornel University, “Grape Disease Control, June 2023” by Katie Gold, Assistant Professor of Grape Pathology, Cornell University, Geneva, NY. The robot is designed to operate over the vineyard rows, so each side and top of the vines are treated at the same time.
A conceptual drawing is attached to this application. The robot uses high floatation tracks (Shown) or a Zero Turn Radius concept with floatation tires that allows the robot to operate on wet ground, without compacting soil around the vines, during nocturnal operation.
A reflective hood will be lined with UV-C light strips. The autonomous robot will use a combination of GPS, RTK, 5G Cell similar to the concept used on the existing Mars Rover GPS locator system developed by SDSU students.
Batteries will be located on each side of the robot to supply power to drive the tracks (Shown) or floatation tires. UV-C light strips, control systems, and general work lights (Not shown on concept drawing) for safety are powered by genset incorporated into the chassis, because of electrical power demand to operate the UV-C lights. The robot is a hybrid system, using AC Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) as a backup to the batteries.
The Senior Engineering Design Team will assist in the fabrication, vineyard field tests, evaluation of fungus control, and programming/debugging of the actual autonomous robotic system.
Jerome Natzel will head up the project engineering with regards to the conceptualization, design, layout, fabrication, and scheduling of the UV light treatment robot and working with Wil Natzel, Coordinator, Jason Sternhagen, M.S., Electrical Engineering Instructor, EE Research Associate III / SDSU Advisor for Robotics Club and Senior Engineering Design Team and Madalyn Shires, Ph.D., SDSU Plant Pathology Specialist; Director of Plant Diagnostic Clinic; will assist in monitoring and testing of vineyards.
During the design and fabrication phases of the robot, Jason Sternhagen will mentor the Senior Engineering Design Team and coordinate formal review presentations to a number of SDSU engineering faculty to critique.
Once the robot is functional, Craig, Jim and Madalyn will work with the Senior Engineering Design Team to set up a baseline UV test rows in each South Dakota vineyard. UV treated rows will be compared with fungicide sprayed vineyard rows in each of the same vineyards, during the growing season. Using the robot for fungus treatment on Natzel’s 12 acre vineyard, will add only 2.1 tons of CO2 to the greenhouse gases per year. Calculation is also based on the June 2023 Cornell Study.
Objectives
- Fabricate and test functionality of an Autonomous UV Light Treatment Robotic System using a variety of components in conjunction with SDSU Robotics Club (2020-2022)robot and the Senior Design Engineering Project Team (2024-2025) robot.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the UV light treatment by comparing fungus control in plants with sprayed fungicide vs. UV light treated plants in test plots in the vineyards in South Dakota and Minnesota.
- Share findings through websites, publications, and field days.
Cooperators
- - Producer
- - Producer
- - Producer
Research
Year 1:
April-August
The first objective of this grant is to fabricate an UV-C Robotic System. Jerome met with Jason Sternhagen, Research Assistant, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Todd Letcher, Mechanical Associate Professor at South Dakota State University (SDSU) along with numerous phone calls and emails to set up design teams including the number of students needed and what responsibilities they will have.
In late August two teams of SDSU students were formed for research, design and fabrication of the Robotic System. The Mechanical Engineering Team (ME) is Dakota Woertink, Wyatt Roller, Oliver Smith, Travis Tousand, and Logan Jenc. The combined Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Science Team(CS) is Dylan Peterson, Reilly Hoops, Ryan Busch, Ethan Hof, and Amanuel Ayalew.
Sept-January
Jerome and Wil Natzel worked with/providing guidance to the teams and SDSU faculty either by in person meetings or zoom calls and frequent emails and phone calls.
The ME students have completed their preliminary structural design with fabrication to begin in February/March 2026. Attached is the new conceptual design for the UV-C Robotic System (Concept Autonomous Vehicle.) The design is going out for costing (component parts, fabricated metals, etc.)
The wheel assembly with motors is currently being fabricated. Rims and tires have been purchased.
The EE and CS students are working on control sets, batteries, and motors. The EE’s are testing out the controls by fabricating a small working model which uses the same controls as will be used with the actual UV-C Robotic System. Attached is the design of the working model (Test Platform-Controls Study.) The CS is testing his coding as well.
Included is the pre-design research conducted by the SDSU ME students for the fabrication of the UV-C Robotic System along with an extensive list of resources. Project Report and Research
The students shared their designs with other engineering students (25+), faculty (4+), and famers/ranchers (5) for monthly review in Oct, Nov. Dec. and Jan.
Jerome also had monthly meetings with the Plant Pathology Department at SDSU regarding analysis of the vines after UV treatment.
Year 2
February—April 2026
Complete the fabrication and assembly of the UV-C Robotic System. Continue review of progress with other engineering students, faculty, and farmer/ranchers.
April 28—presentation and demonstration of the vehicle at the SDSU Engineering Expo (Raven Precision Agriculture Center.)
More details (and photos) concerning the progress and completion of the fabrication of the working Robotic System will be included along with testing results for the treatment of funguses.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation summary:
Outreach has been internal to the SDSU Engineering Department—students and faculty and the participating farmers/ranchers with monthly presentations.
Also a project website was created by Wil Natzel and Jaclyn Natzel. It will continue to be updated with information and photos as the project progresses.