This study presents an improved weed detection model, ADL-YOLOv8, designed to enhance detection accuracy for small targets while achieving model lightweighting. It addresses the challenge of attaining both high accuracy and low memory usage in current intelligent weeding equipment. By overcoming this issue, the research not only reduces the hardware costs of automated impurity removal equipment but also enhances software recognition accuracy, contributing to reduced pesticide use and the promotion of sustainable agriculture. The ADL-YOLOv8 model incorporates a lighter AKConv network for better processing of specific features, an ultra-lightweight DySample upsampling module to improve accuracy and efficiency, and the LSKA-Attention mechanism for enhanced detection, particularly of small targets. On the same dataset, ADL-YOLOv8 demonstrated a 2.2% increase in precision, a 2.45% rise in recall, a 3.07% boost in mAP@0.5, and a 1.9% enhancement in mAP@0.95. The model’s size was cut by 15.77%, and its computational complexity was reduced by 10.98%. These findings indicate that ADL-YOLOv8 not only exceeds the original YOLOv8n model but also surpasses the newer YOLOv9t and YOLOv10n in overall performance. The improved algorithm model makes the hardware cost required for embedded terminals lower.

Mulberry leaves, when infected by pathogens, can suffer significant yield loss or even death if early disease detection and timely spraying are not performed. To enhance the detection performance of mulberry leaf diseases in natural environments and to precisely locate early small lesions, we propose a high-precision, high-efficiency disease detection algorithm named YOLOv8-RFMD. Based on improvements to You Only Look Once version 8 (YOLOv8), we first proposed the Multi-Dimension Feature Attention (MDFA) module, which integrates important features at the pixel-level, spatial, and channel dimensions. Building on this, we designed the RFMD Module, which consists of the Conv-BatchNomalization-SiLU (CBS) module, Receptive-Field Coordinated Attention (RFCA) Conv, and MDFA, replacing the Bottleneck in the model’s Residual block. We then employed the ADown down-sampling structure to reduce the model size and computational complexity. Finally, to improve the detection precision of small lesion features, we replaced the Complete Intersection over Union (CIOU) loss function with the Normalized Wasserstein Distance (NWD) loss function. Results show that the YOLOv8-RFMD model achieved a mAP50 of 94.3% and a mAP50:95 of 67.8% on experimental data, representing increases of 2.9% and 4.3%, respectively, compared to the original model. The model size was reduced by 0.53 MB to just 5.45 MB, and the GFLOPs were reduced by 0.3 to only 7.8. YOLOv8-RFMD has displayed great potential for application in real-world mulberry leaf disease detection systems and automatic spraying operations.

During the rice harvesting process, severe occlusion and adhesion exist among multiple targets, such as rice, straw, and leaves, making it difficult to accurately distinguish between rice grains and impurities. To address the current challenges, a lightweight semantic segmentation algorithm for impurities based on an improved SegFormer network is proposed. To make full use of the extracted features, the decoder was redesigned. First, the Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) was introduced to optimize the structure, selectively fusing the high-level semantic features and low-level texture features generated by the encoder. Secondly, a Part Large Kernel Attention (Part-LKA) module was designed and introduced after feature fusion to help the model focus on key regions, simplifying the model and accelerating computation. Finally, to compensate for the lack of spatial interaction capabilities, Bottleneck Recursive Gated Convolution (B-${\mathrm{g}}^n$Conv) was introduced to achieve effective segmentation of rice grains and impurities. Compared with the original model, the improved model’s pixel accuracy (PA) and F1 score increased by 1.6% and 3.1%, respectively. This provides a valuable algorithmic reference for designing a real-time impurity rate monitoring system for rice combine harvesters.

Recognizing traffic signs is crucial for autonomous driving systems, as it significantly impacts their safety and dependability. However, challenges like the diminutive size of objects and intricate background environments limit the effectiveness of current object detection models. To improve small traffic sign detection, this research introduces an enhanced detection algorithm built on YOLOv10. First, a custom-designed layer for detecting small objects is integrated into the neck section of the network, enhancing the feature extraction process for these objects. Second, a refined downsampling module, called Triple-Branch Downsampling (TBD), utilizes a multi-branch structure and hybrid pooling strategy to boost feature extraction efficiency within the model. Finally, the loss function is optimized by integrating the Normalized Wasserstein Distance (NWD) and Wise-MPDIoU mechanisms, increasing the accuracy of bounding box matching and regression. The experimental findings indicate that the enhanced algorithm reaches a mAP@0.5 of 84.8%, marking a 4% increase over YOLOv10. The classification accuracy and recall are 73.4% and 82.9%, respectively. Moreover, the parameter count decreases by approximately 10%, while the computational complexity is reduced by around 5%.

Mulberry leaves, when infected by pathogens, can suffer significant yield loss or even death if early disease detection and timely spraying are not performed. To enhance the detection performance of mulberry leaf diseases in natural environments and to precisely locate early small lesions, we propose a high-precision, high-efficiency disease detection algorithm named YOLOv8-RFMD. Based on improvements to You Only Look Once version 8 (YOLOv8), we first proposed the Multi Dimension Feature Attention (MDFA) module, which integrates important features at the pixel-level, spatial and channel dimensions. Building on this, we designed the RFMD Module, which consists of the Conv-BatchNomalization-SiLU (CBS) module, Receptive-Field Coordinated Attention (RFCA) Conv, and MDFA, replacing the Bottleneck in the model’s Residual block. We then employed Adown down sampling structure to reduce the model size and computational complexity. Finally, to improve the detection precision of small lesion features, we replaced the complete intersection over union (CIOU) loss function with the Normalized Wasserstein Distance (NWD) loss function. Results show that the YOLOv8-RFMD model achieves an mAP50 of 94.3% and an mAP50:95 of 67.8% on experimental data, representing increases of 2.9% and 4.3% respectively compared to the original model. The model size is reduced by 0.53 MB to just 5.45 MB, and the number of floating-point operations is reduced by 0.3 G to only 7.8 G. The improved model meets the deployment requirements of mobile embedded devices and can provide a theoretical reference for the automated spraying operations of mulberry leaves.