Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction

Vertical farms are to be considered the future of agriculture given that they not only use space and resources efficiently but can also consistently produce large yields. Recently, artificial intelligence has been introduced for use in vertical farms to boost crop yields, and crop growth monitoring...

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Main Authors: Yujin Hwang, Seunghyeon Lee, Taejoo Kim, Kyeonghoon Baik, Yukyung Choi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-04-01
Series:Agriculture
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/5/656
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author Yujin Hwang
Seunghyeon Lee
Taejoo Kim
Kyeonghoon Baik
Yukyung Choi
author_facet Yujin Hwang
Seunghyeon Lee
Taejoo Kim
Kyeonghoon Baik
Yukyung Choi
author_sort Yujin Hwang
collection DOAJ
description Vertical farms are to be considered the future of agriculture given that they not only use space and resources efficiently but can also consistently produce large yields. Recently, artificial intelligence has been introduced for use in vertical farms to boost crop yields, and crop growth monitoring is an essential example of the type of automation necessary to manage a vertical farm system. Region of interest predictions are generally used to find crop regions from the color images captured by a camera for the monitoring of growth. However, most deep learning-based prediction approaches are associated with performance degradation issues in the event of high crop densities or when different types of crops are grown together. To address this problem, we introduce a novel method, termed pseudo crop mixing, a model training strategy that targets vertical farms. With a small amount of labeled crop data, the proposed method can achieve optimal performance. This is particularly advantageous for crops with a long growth period, and it also reduces the cost of constructing a dataset that must be frequently updated to support the various crops in existing systems. Additionally, the proposed method demonstrates robustness with new data that were not introduced during the learning process. This advantage can be used for vertical farms that can be efficiently installed and operated in a variety of environments, and because no transfer learning was required, the construction time for container-type vertical farms can be reduced. In experiments, we show that the proposed model achieved a performance of 76.9%, which is 12.5% better than the existing method with a dataset obtained from a container-type indoor vertical farm. Our codes and dataset will be available publicly.
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spelling doaj.art-c16c7e5811f143b4a96490f516a1dbd02023-11-23T09:39:40ZengMDPI AGAgriculture2077-04722022-04-0112565610.3390/agriculture12050656Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest PredictionYujin Hwang0Seunghyeon Lee1Taejoo Kim2Kyeonghoon Baik3Yukyung Choi4Department of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, KoreaDepartment of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, KoreaDepartment of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, KoreaN.Thing Corporation, Seoul 06020, KoreaDepartment of Intelligent Mechatronics Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, KoreaVertical farms are to be considered the future of agriculture given that they not only use space and resources efficiently but can also consistently produce large yields. Recently, artificial intelligence has been introduced for use in vertical farms to boost crop yields, and crop growth monitoring is an essential example of the type of automation necessary to manage a vertical farm system. Region of interest predictions are generally used to find crop regions from the color images captured by a camera for the monitoring of growth. However, most deep learning-based prediction approaches are associated with performance degradation issues in the event of high crop densities or when different types of crops are grown together. To address this problem, we introduce a novel method, termed pseudo crop mixing, a model training strategy that targets vertical farms. With a small amount of labeled crop data, the proposed method can achieve optimal performance. This is particularly advantageous for crops with a long growth period, and it also reduces the cost of constructing a dataset that must be frequently updated to support the various crops in existing systems. Additionally, the proposed method demonstrates robustness with new data that were not introduced during the learning process. This advantage can be used for vertical farms that can be efficiently installed and operated in a variety of environments, and because no transfer learning was required, the construction time for container-type vertical farms can be reduced. In experiments, we show that the proposed model achieved a performance of 76.9%, which is 12.5% better than the existing method with a dataset obtained from a container-type indoor vertical farm. Our codes and dataset will be available publicly.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/5/656crop growth monitoringvertical farmsregion-of-interest (RoI) predictionstance segmentationself-trainingpseudo label
spellingShingle Yujin Hwang
Seunghyeon Lee
Taejoo Kim
Kyeonghoon Baik
Yukyung Choi
Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
Agriculture
crop growth monitoring
vertical farms
region-of-interest (RoI) prediction
stance segmentation
self-training
pseudo label
title Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
title_full Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
title_fullStr Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
title_full_unstemmed Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
title_short Crop Growth Monitoring System in Vertical Farms Based on Region-of-Interest Prediction
title_sort crop growth monitoring system in vertical farms based on region of interest prediction
topic crop growth monitoring
vertical farms
region-of-interest (RoI) prediction
stance segmentation
self-training
pseudo label
url https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/5/656
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AT seunghyeonlee cropgrowthmonitoringsysteminverticalfarmsbasedonregionofinterestprediction
AT taejookim cropgrowthmonitoringsysteminverticalfarmsbasedonregionofinterestprediction
AT kyeonghoonbaik cropgrowthmonitoringsysteminverticalfarmsbasedonregionofinterestprediction
AT yukyungchoi cropgrowthmonitoringsysteminverticalfarmsbasedonregionofinterestprediction