Mahla Nejati
Papers
12
Total Citations
634
H-Index
8
About
Mahla Nejati is a pioneering researcher in agricultural robotics, specializing in machine vision, deep learning, and autonomous systems for precision horticulture. Based in New Zealand, her work has focused primarily on solving critical labor shortages facing the country's thriving kiwifruit, winegrape, and apple industries through intelligent robotic solutions. Nejati's most celebrated contributions center on robotic kiwifruit harvesting and pollination. Her 2019 paper on robotic harvesting using convolutional neural networks and robotic arms has accumulated an impressive 330 citations, establishing her as a leading voice in agricultural automation. Complementing this, her work on autonomous kiwifruit pollination — developed amid growing concerns over declining bee populations — has garnered nearly 100 citations and demonstrated real-world viability through quality evaluations of robot-pollinated fruit. Beyond kiwifruit, Nejati has broadened her scope to include robotic grapevine pruning, apple fruitlet mapping, and even industrial manipulation of flexible flat cables, showcasing her versatility across robotic perception and manipulation challenges. Her deep neural network approaches to orchard vision systems — tackling occlusion, dynamic lighting, and complex canopy environments — have helped define best practices in the field. With over 600 cumulative citations, her research is actively shaping the future of smart, autonomous agriculture.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2Improvements to and large‐scale evaluation of a robotic kiwifruit harvester109 citations · 2019
- 3
- 4Modelling wine grapevines for autonomous robotic cane pruning31 citations · 2023
- 5Evaluating the Quality of Kiwifruit Pollinated with an Autonomous Robot16 citations · 2021
- 6Robotic Pollination - Targeting kiwifruit flowers for commercial application15 citations · 2017
- 7
- 8
- 9Kiwifruit detection in challenging conditions6 citations · 2020
- 10