ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery

IntroductionLicorice has significant medicinal and ecological importance. However, prolonged overharvesting has resulted in twofold damage to wild licorice resources and the ecological environment. Thus, precisely determining the distribution and growth condition of wild licorice is critical. Tradit...

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Main Authors: Jing Yang, Huaibin Qin, Jianguo Dai, Guoshun Zhang, Miaomiao Xu, Yuan Qin, Jinglong Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2025-07-01
Series:Frontiers in Plant Science
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Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1617997/full
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author Jing Yang
Huaibin Qin
Jianguo Dai
Guoshun Zhang
Miaomiao Xu
Yuan Qin
Jinglong Liu
author_facet Jing Yang
Huaibin Qin
Jianguo Dai
Guoshun Zhang
Miaomiao Xu
Yuan Qin
Jinglong Liu
author_sort Jing Yang
collection DOAJ
description IntroductionLicorice has significant medicinal and ecological importance. However, prolonged overharvesting has resulted in twofold damage to wild licorice resources and the ecological environment. Thus, precisely determining the distribution and growth condition of wild licorice is critical. Traditional licorice resource survey methods are unsuitable for complex terrain and do not meet the requirements of large-scale monitoring.MethodsIn order to solve this problem, this study constructs a new dataset of wild licorice that was gathered using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and proposes a novel detection network named ALPD-Net for identifying wild licorice. To improve the model’s performance in complex backgrounds, an Adaptive Background Suppression Module (ABSM) was designed. Through adaptive channel space and positional encoding, background interference is effectively suppressed. Additionally, to enhance the model’s attention to licorice at different scales, a Lightweight Multi-Scale Module (LMSM) using multi-scale dilated convolution is introduced, significantly reducing the probability of missed detections. At the same time, a Progressive Feature Fusion Module (PFFM) is developed, where a weighted self-attention fusion strategy is employed to effectively merge detailed and semantic information from adjacent layers, thereby preventing information loss or mismatches.Results and discussionThe experimental results show that ALPD-Net achieves good detection accuracy in wild licorice identification, with precision 73.3%, recall 76.1%, and mean Average Precision at IoU=0.50 (mAP50) of 79.5%. Further comparisons with mainstream object detection models show that ALPD-Net not only provides higher detection accuracy for wild licorice, but also dramatically reduces missed and false detections. These features make ALPD-Net a potential option for large-scale surveys and monitoring of wild licorice resources using UAV remote sensing.
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spelling doaj-art-a4df84c3b31049229ca6a686b2b98c3d2025-08-20T02:46:58ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Plant Science1664-462X2025-07-011610.3389/fpls.2025.16179971617997ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imageryJing YangHuaibin QinJianguo DaiGuoshun ZhangMiaomiao XuYuan QinJinglong LiuIntroductionLicorice has significant medicinal and ecological importance. However, prolonged overharvesting has resulted in twofold damage to wild licorice resources and the ecological environment. Thus, precisely determining the distribution and growth condition of wild licorice is critical. Traditional licorice resource survey methods are unsuitable for complex terrain and do not meet the requirements of large-scale monitoring.MethodsIn order to solve this problem, this study constructs a new dataset of wild licorice that was gathered using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and proposes a novel detection network named ALPD-Net for identifying wild licorice. To improve the model’s performance in complex backgrounds, an Adaptive Background Suppression Module (ABSM) was designed. Through adaptive channel space and positional encoding, background interference is effectively suppressed. Additionally, to enhance the model’s attention to licorice at different scales, a Lightweight Multi-Scale Module (LMSM) using multi-scale dilated convolution is introduced, significantly reducing the probability of missed detections. At the same time, a Progressive Feature Fusion Module (PFFM) is developed, where a weighted self-attention fusion strategy is employed to effectively merge detailed and semantic information from adjacent layers, thereby preventing information loss or mismatches.Results and discussionThe experimental results show that ALPD-Net achieves good detection accuracy in wild licorice identification, with precision 73.3%, recall 76.1%, and mean Average Precision at IoU=0.50 (mAP50) of 79.5%. Further comparisons with mainstream object detection models show that ALPD-Net not only provides higher detection accuracy for wild licorice, but also dramatically reduces missed and false detections. These features make ALPD-Net a potential option for large-scale surveys and monitoring of wild licorice resources using UAV remote sensing.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1617997/fullUAV imagerylicorice detectionbackground suppressionfeature fusiondeep learning
spellingShingle Jing Yang
Huaibin Qin
Jianguo Dai
Guoshun Zhang
Miaomiao Xu
Yuan Qin
Jinglong Liu
ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
Frontiers in Plant Science
UAV imagery
licorice detection
background suppression
feature fusion
deep learning
title ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
title_full ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
title_fullStr ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
title_full_unstemmed ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
title_short ALPD-Net: a wild licorice detection network based on UAV imagery
title_sort alpd net a wild licorice detection network based on uav imagery
topic UAV imagery
licorice detection
background suppression
feature fusion
deep learning
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1617997/full
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