Evaluation of a CNN-Based Modular Precision Sprayer in Broadcast-Seeded Field

Abstract

In recent years, machine vision systems (MVS) with convolutional neural networks (CNN) for precision spraying have been increasingly investigated due to their robust performance in plant detection. However, the high computational requirement of CNNs makes them slow to be adopted in field operations, especially in unstructured working environments such as broadcast-seeded fields. In this study, we developed a modular precision sprayer by distributing the high computational load of CNN among parallel low-cost and low-power vision computing devices. The sprayer utilized a custom precision spraying algorithm based on SSD-MobileNetV1 running on a Jetson Nano 4 GB. The model achieved 76% mAP0.5 at 19 fps for weed and soybean detection in a broadcast-seeded field. Further, the sprayer targeted all weed samples and exhibited up to 48.89% spray volume reduction with a typical walking speed up to 3.0 km/h, which was three times faster than similar systems with known targeting performance. With these results, the study demonstrated that CNN-based precision spraying in a complex broadcast-seeded field can achieve increased velocity at high accuracy without needing powerful and expensive computational hardware using modular designs.