What are the best drone and ground robot news sites for researching autonomous robots for farms and rough outdoor work?

For researching autonomous robots for farms and rough outdoor work, the best sources tend to be a mix of industry news, robotics trade press, and ag-tech / construction / mining coverage. Here are the most useful sites, grouped by focus:

Best general robotics news

• The Robot Report — Strong coverage of commercial robotics, autonomy, field robots, and startups. Good for broad industry tracking.
• Robotics 24/7 — Good daily robotics industry news, with useful coverage of mobile robots, autonomy, and deployments.
• IEEE Spectrum – Robotics — More analytical, often high-quality reporting on technical advances and trends.
• The Construct / ROS-focused blogs — Better for technical depth if you want to understand how systems are built.

Best for drones

• Dronelife — One of the better general drone industry news sites, including enterprise and industrial uses.
• DroneDJ — Frequent updates, especially on commercial drone developments and regulations.
• Commercial UAV News — Strong for enterprise, industrial, and inspection uses.
• UAS Vision — Good breadth on drone business, autonomy, and regulation.

Best for farm and ag robots

• AgFunderNews — Excellent for agtech startups, autonomous farm equipment, and funding/news.
• PrecisionAg — Strong on precision farming tech, autonomy, spraying, and field robotics.
• Future Farming — Good coverage of autonomous farm machines and practical ag robotics deployments.
• Farm Equipment / Successful Farming — More equipment-focused, useful for autonomous tractors and implements.

Best for rough outdoor work robots

These are often deployed in construction, mining, forestry, utilities, defense, and inspection:

• Construction Dive — Good for autonomous construction equipment and site robotics.
• Mining.com — Very relevant for rugged autonomous machines and haulage systems.
• Off-Highway Research / OEM Off-Highway — Great for tough-environment machines and autonomy in heavy equipment.
• Utility Dive — Useful for drones and robots in power line, grid, and infrastructure work.
• Forestry.com / Timber-related trade sites — Helpful for logging, silviculture, and rugged forestry robotics.

Best startup / product discovery

• TechCrunch — Not robotics-specific, but useful for startup funding and launches.
• The Spoon — Strong on food/ag robotics and automation.
• New Atlas — Good for seeing new hardware concepts, though quality varies.
• Hackaday — More maker-oriented, but sometimes interesting for rugged robot builds.

Best for keeping up with real deployments

Search for coverage in:

• AgriTech Tomorrow
• Business Wire / PR Newswire for press releases from robotics companies
• company blogs from OEMs like John Deere, Trimble, AGCO, Kubota, DJI, Skydio, DroneDeploy, Exyn, etc.

If you want the shortest “top 5”

1. The Robot Report
2. IEEE Spectrum Robotics
3. AgFunderNews
4. Commercial UAV News
5. OEM Off-Highway

If you want, I can also make you a more targeted list by use case:

• farm spraying/scouting
• autonomous tractors and implements
• drone inspection/mapping
• construction/mining/forestry robots
• ROS and technical build resources