The paper presents a deep‑learning perception framework for selective robotic cotton harvesting, evaluated on 1,008 field images captured under diverse lighting and weather conditions. Detection models from YOLOv8 to YOLOv13 were benchmarked, with GELAN‑s achieving the best trade‑off between accuracy and speed. For segmentation, YOLOv12‑m‑seg outperformed other models, and a detection‑prompted segmentation approach using GELAN‑s bounding boxes further improved localization for SAM variants. Field trials with a UR5e robot and ZED2i camera confirmed YOLOv12‑m‑seg’s real‑time performance for cotton boll detection, segmentation, and selective picking.
By Thevathayarajh Thayananthan, Xin Zhang, Isuru Laddusinghe Badu, Jonathan Harjono, Glen C. Rains, Beiwen Li, Leonardo M. Bastos, Nuwan K. Wijewardane, Vitor S. Martins
RoMu4o is a ground robot equipped with a 6‑DOF arm and a vision system that performs real‑time deep‑learning image processing and motion planning for proximal hyperspectral leaf sensing in orchards. The system uses robust perception and manipulation pipelines to identify leaf 3D structure, propose 6‑D poses, and generate collision‑free, constraint‑aware paths for precise leaf grasping and spectroscopy. In lab trials the robot achieved a 95 % success rate for 1‑LPB hyperspectral sampling, while field trials in a pistachio orchard reached 70 % success for autonomous leaf grasping and measurement.
whyItMatters":"The system demonstrates a viable robotic solution to automate leaf‑level hyperspectral sensing, addressing labor shortages and enabling precise crop health monitoring in precision agriculture."
By Mehrad Mortazavi, David J. Cappelleri, Reza Ehsani
arXiv:2608.23636v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Small-object detection and instance segmentation remain challenging in orchard environments because of green-on-green similarity, occlusion, and limite...
By Ranjan Sapkota, Manoj Karkee
The paper compares Ultralytics YOLO27, YOLO26, YOLO11, and YOLOv8 for detecting and segmenting small fruit parts in orchard settings. It evaluates five model scales across 30 experiments, finding that YOLO11s-960 and YOLO26s-960 achieve the best mask and box mAP scores while maintaining efficient parameter counts. The study also highlights the difficulty of peduncle detection and provides publicly available code and models for reproducibility.
By Ranjan Sapkota, Manoj Karkee
The paper introduces a lightweight multimodal vision‑language framework based on TinyCLIP for fine‑grained classification of early‑stage apple fruitlet anatomy (calyx, fruitlet body, peduncle) in orchard images. Using a dataset of 600 high‑resolution RGB images, the model employs domain‑specific language prompts and a sliding‑window inference strategy to produce interpretable heatmaps for whole‑image localization. Achieving macro‑F1 of 0.93 on an NVIDIA T4 GPU and maintaining accuracy after INT8 quantization, the system is optimized for edge deployment on NVIDIA Jetson hardware with model sizes around 127‑137 MB and millisecond‑level inference.
By Ranjan Sapkota, William Bu, Chen Chen, Yunjun Xu, Manoj Karkee
arXiv:2606. 26151v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: While autonomous rovers have become indispensable to precision farming, achieving consistent operational safety remains a critical challenge.
By Th\'eo Biardeau (XLIM-ASALI, UFR SFA), Anne-Sophie Capelle-Laiz\'e (UP, XLIM-ASALI, XLIM-ASALI), Salwan Alwan (UFR SFA), David Helbert (UFR SFA)