Feedstuffs (Bloomington, Minn., Dec. 15) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced $3 million in grants Dec. 15 to advance the use of robots that work alongside people in American production agriculture. Illinois will receive $532,607 for a project to build a robust agricultural framework for cooperative networks of human operators and robotic mobile platforms that provide guaranteed performance in highly variable terrain and soil conditions and support interchangeability of tools, platforms and crops.