Existing object detection methods with many parameters and computations are not suitable for deployment on devices with poor performance in agricultural environments. Therefore, this study proposes a lightweight crop pest detection method based on convolutional neural networks, named YOLOLite-CSG. The basic architecture of the method is derived from a simplified version of YOLOv3, namely YOLOLite, and k-means++ is utilized to improve the generation process of the prior boxes. In addition, a lightweight sandglass block and coordinate attention are used to optimize the structure of residual blocks. The method was evaluated on the CP15 crop pest dataset. Its detection precision exceeds that of YOLOv3, at 82.9%, while the number of parameters is 5 million, only 8.1% of the number used by YOLOv3, and the number of computations is 9.8 GFLOPs, only 15% of that used by YOLOv3. Furthermore, the detection precision of the method is superior to all other commonly used object detection methods evaluated in this study, with a maximum improvement of 10.6%, and it still has a significant edge in the number of parameters and computation required. The method has excellent pest detection precision with extremely few parameters and computations. It is well-suited to be deployed on equipment for detecting crop pests in agricultural environments.

Crop diseases are one of the important factors affecting crop yield and quality and are also an important research target in the field of agriculture. In order to quickly and accurately identify crop diseases, help farmers to control crop diseases in time, and reduce crop losses. Inspired by the application of convolutional neural networks in image identification, we propose a lightweight crop disease image identification model based on attentional feature fusion named DSGIResNet_AFF, which introduces self-built lightweight residual blocks, inverted residuals blocks, and attentional feature fusion modules on the basis of ResNet18. We apply the model to the identification of rice and corn diseases, and the results show the effectiveness of the model on the real dataset. Additionally, the model is compared with other convolutional neural networks (AlexNet, VGG16, ShuffleNetV2, MobileNetV2, MobileNetV3-Small and MobileNetV3-Large), and the experimental results show that the accuracy, sensitivity, F1-score, AUC of the proposed model DSGIResNet_AFF are 98.30%, 98.23%, 98.24%, 99.97%, respectively, which are better than other network models, while the complexity of the model is significantly reduced (compared with the basic model ResNet18, the number of parameters is reduced by 94.10%, and the floating point of operations(FLOPs) is reduced by 86.13%). The network model DSGIResNet_AFF can be applied to mobile devices and become a useful tool for identifying crop diseases.

Feeding inefficiencies in pond aquaculture not only elevate operational costs and environmental impact but also compromise fish growth and welfare, driving an urgent need for precision feeding technologies. However, accurate, real-time detection of feeding events in complex, cluttered pond environments remains challenging due to dense, small targets, variable lighting, and background disturbances. To address these issues, we propose PM-YOLO, an enhanced YOLOv8n framework that integrates Parallelized Patch-Aware Attention modules for multi-scale feature retention and a Minimum Point Distance IoU loss term for superior bounding-box regression of overlapping fish. We also curate FeedFishDatas, a 7,400-image dataset capturing diverse feeding scenarios, and demonstrate that PM-YOLO achieves 87.7% precision and 83.5% mAP-50—outperforming standard YOLOv8n and YOLOv11n—while maintaining real-time inference at 8.1 ms per frame. Our ablation studies isolate the contributions of each innovation, confirming their synergistic impact on detection performance. Looking ahead, we envisage lightweight PM-YOLO variants via model pruning and quantization for edge deployment, temporal smoothing for stability, and domain adaptation to extend applicability across species and water conditions, paving the way for fully automated, closed-loop feeding systems in sustainable aquaculture.

Hyperspectral imaging for gas plume identification holds significant potential for applications in industrial emission control and environmental monitoring, including critical needs in livestock farm environments. Conventional pixel-by-pixel spectral identification methods primarily rely on spectral information, often overlooking the rich spatial distribution features inherent in hyperspectral images. This oversight can lead to challenges such as inaccurate identification or leakage along the edge regions of gas plumes and false positives from isolated pixels in non-gas areas. While infrared imaging for gas plumes offers a new perspective by leveraging multi-frame image variations to locate plumes, these methods typically lack spectral discriminability. To address these limitations, we draw inspiration from the multi-frame analysis framework of infrared imaging and propose a novel hyperspectral gas plume identification method based on image background modeling and suppression. Our approach begins by employing background modeling and suppression techniques to accurately detect the primary gas plume region. Subsequently, a representative spectrum is extracted from this identified plume region for precise gas identification. To further enhance the identification accuracy, especially in the challenging plume edge regions, a spatial-spectral combined judgment operator is applied as a post-processing step. The effectiveness of the method was validated through experiments using both simulated and real-world measured data from ammonia and methanol gas releases. We compare its performance against classical methods and an ablation version of our model. Results consistently demonstrate that our method effectively detects low-concentration, thin, and diffuse gas plumes, offering a more robust and accurate solution for hyperspectral gas plume identification with strong applicability to real-world industrial and livestock farm scenarios.