FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision

IntroductionIn corn pest and disease prevention, traditional blanket pesticide spraying has led to significant pesticide waste and environmental pollution. To address this challenge, research into precision agricultural equipment based on computer vision has become a hotspot.MethodsIn this study, an...

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Main Authors: Zhongqiang Song, Wenqiang Li, Xuehang Song, Shun Li
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.2025.1571228/full
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author Zhongqiang Song
Zhongqiang Song
Wenqiang Li
Xuehang Song
Shun Li
author_facet Zhongqiang Song
Zhongqiang Song
Wenqiang Li
Xuehang Song
Shun Li
author_sort Zhongqiang Song
collection DOAJ
description IntroductionIn corn pest and disease prevention, traditional blanket pesticide spraying has led to significant pesticide waste and environmental pollution. To address this challenge, research into precision agricultural equipment based on computer vision has become a hotspot.MethodsIn this study, an integrated system named the FGA-Corn system is investigated for precision pesticide application, which consists of three important parts. The first part is the Front Camera Rear Funnel (FCRF) mechanical structure for efficient pesticide application. The second part is the Agri Spray Decision System (ASDS) algorithm, which is developed for post-processing the YOLO detection results, driving the funnel motor to enable precise pesticide delivery and facilitate real-time targeted application in specific crop areas. The third part is the GMA-YOLOv8 detection algorithm for center leaf areas. Building on the YOLOv8n framework, a more efficient GHG2S backbone generated by HGNetV2 enhanced with GhostConv and SimAM is proposed for feature extraction. The CM module integrated with Mixed Local Channel Attention is used for multi-scale feature fusion. An Auxiliary Head utilizing deep supervision is employed for improved assistive training.Results and discussionExperimental results on both the D1 and D2 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and generalization ability, with mAP@0.5 scores of 94.5% (+1.6%) and 90.1% (+1.8%), respectively. The system achieves a 23.3% reduction in model size and a computational complexity of 6.8 GFLOPs. Field experiments verify the effectiveness of the system, showing a detection accuracy of 91.3 ± 1.9% for center leaves, a pesticide delivery rate of 84.1 ± 3.3%, and a delivery precision of 92.2 ± 2.9%. This research not only achieves an efficient and accurate corn precision spraying program but also offers new insights and technological advances for intelligent agricultural machinery.
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spelling doaj-art-c6fcf45073da4cd6b67772fc1772bbf22025-08-20T02:43:39ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Plant Science1664-462X2025-07-011610.3389/fpls.2025.15712281571228FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning visionZhongqiang Song0Zhongqiang Song1Wenqiang Li2Xuehang Song3Shun Li4School of Physics and Electronic Information, Weifang University, Weifang, Shandong, ChinaCollege of Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, Henan, ChinaCollege of Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, Henan, ChinaCollege of Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, Henan, ChinaSchool of Physics and Electronic Information, Weifang University, Weifang, Shandong, ChinaIntroductionIn corn pest and disease prevention, traditional blanket pesticide spraying has led to significant pesticide waste and environmental pollution. To address this challenge, research into precision agricultural equipment based on computer vision has become a hotspot.MethodsIn this study, an integrated system named the FGA-Corn system is investigated for precision pesticide application, which consists of three important parts. The first part is the Front Camera Rear Funnel (FCRF) mechanical structure for efficient pesticide application. The second part is the Agri Spray Decision System (ASDS) algorithm, which is developed for post-processing the YOLO detection results, driving the funnel motor to enable precise pesticide delivery and facilitate real-time targeted application in specific crop areas. The third part is the GMA-YOLOv8 detection algorithm for center leaf areas. Building on the YOLOv8n framework, a more efficient GHG2S backbone generated by HGNetV2 enhanced with GhostConv and SimAM is proposed for feature extraction. The CM module integrated with Mixed Local Channel Attention is used for multi-scale feature fusion. An Auxiliary Head utilizing deep supervision is employed for improved assistive training.Results and discussionExperimental results on both the D1 and D2 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and generalization ability, with mAP@0.5 scores of 94.5% (+1.6%) and 90.1% (+1.8%), respectively. The system achieves a 23.3% reduction in model size and a computational complexity of 6.8 GFLOPs. Field experiments verify the effectiveness of the system, showing a detection accuracy of 91.3 ± 1.9% for center leaves, a pesticide delivery rate of 84.1 ± 3.3%, and a delivery precision of 92.2 ± 2.9%. This research not only achieves an efficient and accurate corn precision spraying program but also offers new insights and technological advances for intelligent agricultural machinery.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1571228/fullprecision agriculturecenter leaf detectionembedded device deploymentrealtime detectionprecision pesticide delivery system
spellingShingle Zhongqiang Song
Zhongqiang Song
Wenqiang Li
Xuehang Song
Shun Li
FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
Frontiers in Plant Science
precision agriculture
center leaf detection
embedded device deployment
realtime detection
precision pesticide delivery system
title FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
title_full FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
title_fullStr FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
title_full_unstemmed FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
title_short FGA-Corn: an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
title_sort fga corn an integrated system for precision pesticide application in center leaf areas using deep learning vision
topic precision agriculture
center leaf detection
embedded device deployment
realtime detection
precision pesticide delivery system
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2025.1571228/full
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AT wenqiangli fgacornanintegratedsystemforprecisionpesticideapplicationincenterleafareasusingdeeplearningvision
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