ResLMFFNet: a real-time semantic segmentation network for precision agriculture

Abstract

Lightweight multiscale-feature-fusion network (LMFFNet), a proficient real-time CNN architecture, adeptly achieves a balance between inference time and accuracy. Capturing the intricate details of precision agriculture target objects in remote sensing images requires deep SEM-B blocks in the LMFFNet model design. However, employing numerous SEM-B units leads to instability during backward gradient flow. This work proposes the novel residual-LMFFNet (ResLMFFNet) model for ensuring smooth gradient flow within SEM-B blocks. By incorporating residual connections, ResLMFFNet achieves improved accuracy without affecting the inference speed and the number of trainable parameters. The results of the experiments demonstrate that this architecture has achieved superior performance compared to other real-time architectures across diverse precision agriculture applications involving UAV and satellite images. Compared to LMFFNet, the ResLMFFNet architecture enhances the Jaccard Index values by 2.1% for tree detection, 1.4% for crop detection, and 11.2% for wheat-yellow rust detection. Achieving these remarkable accuracy levels involves maintaining almost identical inference time and computational complexity as the LMFFNet model. The source code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/iremulku/Semantic-Segmentation-in-Precision-Agriculture.