Cloud–edge–device collaborative computing in smart agriculture: architectures, applications, and future perspectives

Smart agriculture is rapidly evolving in response to growing global demands for food security and sustainable resource management. Cloud-edge-device collaborative computing has emerged as a transformative paradigm, addressing the limitations of traditional centralized architectures by enabling distributed intelligence, real-time processing, and adaptive decision-making. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the architectures, technical characteristics, and application scenarios of cloud-edge-device collaboration in agriculture. Key domains covered include environmental monitoring, intelligent irrigation, UAV-machinery coordination, livestock health management, and pest and disease control. Major challenges such as device heterogeneity, data consistency, resource constraints, and privacy concerns are identified and discussed. Furthermore, six critical research directions are outlined, including intelligent scheduling algorithms, lightweight edge AI, hierarchical data fusion, federated learning, interoperability frameworks, and digital twin technologies. This review aims to serve as a practical reference and theoretical foundation for advancing the design and implementation of next-generation smart agriculture systems.