An Efficient Group Convolution and Feature Fusion Method for Weed Detection

Chaowen Chen, Ying Zang, Jinkang Jiao, Daoqing Yan, Zhuorong Fan, Zijian Cui and Minghua Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Chaowen Chen: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Ying Zang: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Jinkang Jiao: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Daoqing Yan: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Zhuorong Fan: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Zijian Cui: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
Minghua Zhang: College of Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: Weed detection is a crucial step in achieving intelligent weeding for vegetables. Currently, research on vegetable weed detection technology is relatively limited, and existing detection methods still face challenges due to complex natural conditions, resulting in low detection accuracy and efficiency. This paper proposes the YOLOv8-EGC-Fusion (YEF) model, an enhancement based on the YOLOv8 model, to address these challenges. This model introduces plug-and-play modules: (1) The Efficient Group Convolution (EGC) module leverages convolution kernels of various sizes combined with group convolution techniques to significantly reduce computational cost. Integrating this EGC module with the C2f module creates the C2f-EGC module, strengthening the model’s capacity to grasp local contextual information. (2) The Group Context Anchor Attention (GCAA) module strengthens the model’s capacity to capture long-range contextual information, contributing to improved feature comprehension. (3) The GCAA-Fusion module effectively merges multi-scale features, addressing shallow feature loss and preserving critical information. Leveraging GCAA-Fusion and PAFPN, we developed an Adaptive Feature Fusion (AFF) feature pyramid structure that amplifies the model’s feature extraction capabilities. To ensure effective evaluation, we collected a diverse dataset of weed images from various vegetable fields. A series of comparative experiments was conducted to verify the detection effectiveness of the YEF model. The results show that the YEF model outperforms the original YOLOv8 model, Faster R-CNN, RetinaNet, TOOD, RTMDet, and YOLOv5 in detection performance. The detection metrics achieved by the YEF model are as follows: precision of 0.904, recall of 0.88, F1 score of 0.891, and mAP0.5 of 0.929. In conclusion, the YEF model demonstrates high detection accuracy for vegetable and weed identification, meeting the requirements for precise detection.

Keywords: weed detection; YOLOv8; feature extraction; multi-scale features (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/1/37/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/1/37/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2024:i:1:p:37-:d:1554426

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().