Avital Bechar Full Professor

Prof. Avital Bechar is a senior research scientist at the Institute of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and an adjunct Professor at Ben Gurion University. He was appointed adjunct professor in the school of IE at Purdue University, USA, in the years 2011-2012.

He holds a B.Sc. degree in Aerospace Engineering and a M.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering, both from the Technion, and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Ben-Gurion University, on agricultural robotics and human–robot integrated systems.

Prof. Bechar is the founder and head of the Agricultural Robotics Lab at IAE, where he is conducting fundamental and applied research in robotics in agriculture, human-robot collaborative systems, proximal sensing technologies, technologies to reduce labor and developing new concepts and approaches for the operation and development of agricultural robots and proximal sensing.

He is the author of more than 100 articles in peer reviewed scientific publications, several book chapters, a book on robotics and precision agriculture and and holds several patents. He has leaded and participated in more than 50 local and international research projects.

Prof. Bechar served as the director of the Institute of Agricultural and Biosystems Enineering (2019 – 2024) is the former chairman of the Israeli Society of Agricultural Engineering (ISAE), a co-founder of the Israeli Robotics Association (IROB), an IEEE senior member, a member of the IEEE Robotics and Automation and IEEE SMC Societies, a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Agricultural Robotics, a member of the CIGR Section V committee (Systems management) and a council member of the EurAgEng society.

As Vice Director for Research and Development, Prof. Avital Bechar is responsible for the research affairs and the development of research collaborations. He is responsible for overseeing the Research Programs Unit, the Research Service Units, the Interdisciplinary Research Centers and the Genetic Resources Unit.