Gaia Moretti

Ms. Gaia Moretti

Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
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Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

2Years (2025-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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27 January 2025 in Smart Agricultural Technology
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
VCVito Aurelio Cerasola
Vito Aurelio Cerasola
Francesco OrsiniFrancesco Orsini
Francesco Orsini
GPGiuseppina Pennisi
Giuseppina Pennisi
Gaia MorettiGaia Moretti
Gaia Moretti
SBStefano Bona
Stefano Bona
GGGiorgio Gianquinto
Giorgio Gianquinto

6 October 2026 in Horticulturae
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Gaia MorettiGaia Moretti
Gaia Moretti
FOFilippo Orazi
Filippo Orazi
VCVito Aurelio Cerasola
Vito Aurelio Cerasola
MLMatteo Landolfo
Matteo Landolfo
GPGiuseppina Pennisi
Giuseppina Pennisi
Francesco OrsiniFrancesco Orsini
Francesco Orsini
Automated cucumber harvesting requires a perception system that can detect fruit, assess ripeness and localize the peduncle for cutting under real commercial greenhouse conditions. This study proposes an RGB-D perception framework combining YOLOv8n object detection with depth-based geometric estimation. The framework was evaluated on data collected in commercial greenhouses with dense, continuously varying occlusion, variable illumination and multiple co-visible fruits at different maturity stages. Detections were assigned to five operational classes: ripe, unripe, flagged (non-marketable due to overripeness or deformity), obstructed and peduncle. The detector achieved an overall mAP50 of 0.568, but appearance-based ripeness classification proved unreliable. Confusion concentrated along two boundaries: a continuous, judgment-based occlusion criterion and an absolute length threshold that RGB appearance cannot directly resolve. Depth-based length estimation, by contrast, achieved an MAE of 0.72 cm (RMSE = 1.15 cm, MAPE = 4.04%) directly in the greenhouse. Applying the ripeness length threshold to the estimated lengths misclassified 6.4% of fruits at the RIPE/UNRIPE boundary on the dimensional validation set, indicating that length-based ripeness assignment is feasible. Diameter estimation was markedly less accurate (R2 = 0.49) and is not proposed as a validated measurement for grading or yield estimation. The framework also estimated candidate 3D cutting points that remained spatially consistent across frames; cutting accuracy requires future robotic validation. These results suggest that, in complex greenhouse environments, ripeness decisions of cucumber should rely on depth-based geometric measurement, with object detection used primarily for fruit and peduncle localization. Combining visual detection with quantitative measurement therefore appears to be a promising basis for robotic cucumber harvesting.