A new mobile diagnosis system for estimation of crop disease severity using deep transfer learning

Crop diseases pose as a major threat to global food security. Minimizing disease-induced damage during crop growth and optimizing crop yields are vital for agricultural sustainability. Therefore, advanced disease detection and prevention of such diseases are crucial and the detection must be prompt and efficient as it is essential for the implementation of appropriate control measures. In this work, a parallel deep learning framework based on deep feature fusion is developed to precisely identify the severity of crop diseases. The framework utilizes ResNet50 and Xception as separate branches for feature extraction. Convolutional layer weights are initialized through transfer learning techniques employing models pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset. A fine-tuning strategy is employed for the optimization of convolutional layers and the design of the top layer. This framework achieves an accuracy of 88.58% on the AI Challenger 2018 dataset, marking an enhancement of 2.8% and 13% over other influential deep learning models, and it also outperforms some recent works. Likewise, the framework exhibits a recognition accuracy of 99.53% on the PlantVillage dataset. Moreover, an Android-based application is developed to diagnose the severity of crop diseases in real-time. The diagnostic system swiftly procures results and provides control recommendations through the capture and upload of images to the platform. The advanced severity detection system reduces the expertise required from users, facilitating precise prevention and control measures whilst focusing on accessibility. This work aims to provide innovative approaches and solutions for disease detection in the agricultural field, utilizing artificial intelligence to enhance agricultural informatization and creating more sustainable farming methods.