Object detection is revolutionizing precision agriculture by enabling advanced crop monitoring, weed management, pest detection, and autonomous field operations. This comprehensive review synthesizes object detection methodologies, tracing their evolution from traditional feature-based approaches to cutting-edge deep learning architectures. We analyze key agricultural applications, leveraging datasets like PlantVillage, DeepWeeds, and AgriNet, and introduce a novel framework for evaluating algorithm performance based on mean Average Precision (mAP), inference speed, and computational efficiency. Through a comparative analysis of leading algorithms, including Faster R-CNN, YOLO, and SSD, we identify critical trade-offs and highlight advancements in real-time detection for resource-constrained environments. Persistent challenges, such as environmental variability, limited labeled data, and model generalization, are critically examined, with proposed solutions including multi-modal data fusion and lightweight models for edge deployment. By integrating technical evaluations, meaningful insights, and actionable recommendations, this work bridges technical innovation with practical deployment, paving the way for sustainable, resilient, and productive agricultural systems.

The excessive use of power semiconductor devices in a grid utility increases the malfunction of the control system, produces power quality disturbances (PQDs) and reduces the electrical component life. The present work proposes a novel algorithm based on Improved Principal Component Analysis (IPCA) and 1-Dimensional Convolution Neural Network (1-D-CNN) for detection and classification of PQDs. Firstly, IPCA is used to extract the statistical features of PQDs such as Root Mean Square, Skewness, Range, Kurtosis, Crest Factor, Form Factor. IPCA is decomposed into four levels. The principal component (PC) is obtained by IPCA, and it contains a maximum amount of original data as compare to PCA. 1-D-CNN is also used to extract features such as mean, energy, standard deviation, Shannon entropy, and log-energy entropy. The statistical analysis is employed for optimal feature selection. Secondly, these improved features of the PQDs are fed to the 1-D-CNN-based classifier to gain maximum classification accuracy. The proposed IPCA-1-D-CNN is utilized for classification of 12 types of synthetic and simulated single and multiple PQDs. The simulated PQDs are generated from a modified IEEE bus system with wind energy penetration in the balanced distribution system. Finally, the proposed IPCA-1-D-CNN algorithm has been tested with noise (50 dB to 20 dB) and noiseless environment. The obtained results are compared with SVM and other existing techniques. The comparative results show that the proposed method gives significantly higher classification accuracy.

Orchard mobile robots (OMR) represent a critical research focus in the field of modern intelligent agricultural equipment, offering the potential to significantly enhance operational efficiency through the integration of path planning and tracking control navigation methods. However, the inherent complexity of orchard environments presents substantial challenges for robotic systems. Researchers have extensively investigated the robustness of various path planning and tracking control techniques for OMR in complex scenes, aiming to improve the robots’ security, stability, efficiency, and adaptability. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art path planning and tracking control strategies for OMR in such environments. First, it discusses the advances in both global and local path planning methods designed for OMR navigating through complex orchard scenes. Second, it examines tracking control approaches in the context of different motion models, with an emphasis on the application characteristics and current trends in various scene types. Finally, the paper highlights the technical challenges faced by OMR in autonomous tasks within these complex environments and emphasizes the need for further research into navigation technologies that integrate artificial intelligence with end-to-end control systems. This fusion is identified as a promising direction for achieving efficient autonomous operations in orchard environments.

Weed infestation contributes significantly to global agricultural yield loss and increases the reliance on herbicides, raising both economic and environmental concerns. Effective weed detection in agriculture requires high accuracy and architectural efficiency. This is particularly important under challenging field conditions, including densely clustered targets, small weed instances, and low visual contrast between vegetation and soil. In this study, we propose GTDR-YOLOv12, an improved object detection framework based on YOLOv12, tailored for real-time weed identification in complex agricultural environments. The model is evaluated on the publicly available Weeds Detection dataset, which contains a wide range of weed species and challenging visual scenarios. To achieve better accuracy and efficiency, GTDR-YOLOv12 introduces several targeted structural enhancements. The backbone incorporates GDR-Conv, which integrates Ghost convolution and Dynamic ReLU (DyReLU) to improve early-stage feature representation while reducing redundancy. The GTDR-C3 module combines GDR-Conv with Task-Dependent Attention Mechanisms (TDAMs), allowing the network to adaptively refine spatial features critical for accurate weed identification and localization. In addition, the Lookahead optimizer is employed during training to improve convergence efficiency and reduce computational overhead, thereby contributing to the model’s lightweight design. GTDR-YOLOv12 outperforms several representative detectors, including YOLOv7, YOLOv9, YOLOv10, YOLOv11, YOLOv12, ATSS, RTMDet and Double-Head. Compared with YOLOv12, GTDR-YOLOv12 achieves notable improvements across multiple evaluation metrics. Precision increases from 85.0% to 88.0%, recall from 79.7% to 83.9%, and F1-score from 82.3% to 85.9%. In terms of detection accuracy, mAP:0.5 improves from 87.0% to 90.0%, while mAP:0.5:0.95 rises from 58.0% to 63.8%. Furthermore, the model reduces computational complexity. GFLOPs drop from 5.8 to 4.8, and the number of parameters is reduced from 2.51 M to 2.23 M. These reductions reflect a more efficient network design that not only lowers model complexity but also enhances detection performance. With a throughput of 58 FPS on the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier, GTDR-YOLOv12 proves both resource-efficient and deployable for practical, real-time weeding tasks in agricultural settings.

Increasing demand for sustainable agriculture necessitates precise and efficient crop management to minimize resource wastage and environmental impact. To improve the precision of pesticide application in tomato leaves, a real-time tomato leaf detection method using an improved YOLOv8 algorithm is proposed. The framework was developed by integrating Depthwise Grouped Convolutions and an AdamW optimizer to achieve both computational efficiency and precise detection capabilities. The integration of SE_Block further enhanced feature representation by adaptively recalibrating channel-wise attention, improving detection accuracy and robustness. The algorithm was labeled and trained by using a diverse dataset of 1500 tomato leaf images consisting of four labels (All, Green Tomato, Downy Mildew, and Powdery Mildew), capturing variations in disease types, lighting conditions, and leaf orientations, enabling robust detection performance across real-world scenarios. The incorporation of Depthwise Grouped Convolutions into YOLOv8 reduced the computational complexity, enabling faster inference speed without sacrificing detection accuracy. Additionally, the AdamW optimizer enhanced the model convergence during training, ensuring robustness and stability. Compared with the original algorithm, the improved YOLOv8 achieved a significant performance improvement, with model precision (P%) increasing from 83.5% to 85.7% (2.2% increase), recall (R%) improving from 70.4% to 72.8% (2.4% increase), and mAP@0.5 improving from 75.7% to 79.8% (4.1% increase). mAP@0.5:0.95 also saw an improvement, rising from 44.2% to 51.6% (7.4% increase). Furthermore, the F1 score increased from 76.4% to 78.6% (2.2% increase), demonstrating enhanced overall detection accuracy. The system was deployed on the Spraying Robot LPE-260 to enable real-time, automated pesticide application in controlled environments. The improved detection framework ensures the targeted spraying of diseased tomato leaves, significantly reducing chemical usage and minimizing overspray. This system ensures that pesticide is sprayed exclusively on the diseased areas of tomato leaves, further minimizing chemical usage and overspray. It demonstrates the potential of computationally efficient deep learning techniques to address key challenges in precision agriculture, advancing scalable, sustainable, and resource-efficient crop management solutions.