Weed Detection Research Articles

Driveway Detection for Weed Management in Cassava Plantation Fields in Thailand Using Ground Imagery Datasets and Deep Learning Models

Weeds reduce cassava root yields and infest furrow areas quickly. The use of mechanical weeders has been introduced in Thailand; however, manually aligning the weeders with each planting row and at headland turns is still challenging. It is critical to clear weeds on furrow slopes and driveways via mechanical weeders. Automation can support this difficult work for weed management via driveway detection. In this context, deep learning algorithms have the potential to train models to detect driveways through furrow image segmentation. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to develop an image segmentation model for automated weed control operations in cassava plantation fields. To achieve this, image datasets were obtained from various fields to aid weed detection models in automated weed management. Three models—Mask R-CNN, YOLACT, and YOLOv8n-seg—were used to construct the image segmentation model, and they were evaluated according to their precision, recall, and FPS. The results show that YOLOv8n-seg achieved the highest accuracy and FPS (114.94 FPS); however, it experienced issues with frame segmentation during video testing. In contrast, YOLACT had no segmentation issues in the video tests (23.45 FPS), indicating its potential for driveway segmentation in cassava plantations. In summary, image segmentation for detecting driveways can improve weed management in cassava fields, and the further automation of low-cost mechanical weeders in tropical climates can be performed based on the YOLACT algorithm.

Deep learning for image-based detection of weeds from emergence to maturity in wheat fields

Effective weed control in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) fields is crucial for optimizing production and ensuring food security in semi-arid regions. The implementation of deep learning for weed detection could enable precise weed management, leading to enhanced wheat yield, increased income for growers through targeted herbicide use, and a reduced environmental footprint associated with herbicide application. Charlock mustard (Sinapis arvensis L.) [CM], creeping thistle (Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop) [CT], and forking larkspur (Consolida regalis Gray) [FL]) are among the most invasive weed species in wheat fields. Effective management of these weeds is essential to ensure optimal wheat productivity in the semi-arid regions. To detect weeds, an unmanned arial vehicle was used to collect images and videos from 185 wheat fields in Tokat, Turkey. The images were collected from five phenological periods of each species including seedling, rosette, vegetative, flowering, and fruiting (in total 15 classification process). These stages are either important for timely weed control or essential for understanding weed pressure threshold, the potential for increasing weed seedbank increase, and identifying herbicide resistant weeds. A total of 145,792 objects were labeled in the images to create the dataset, divided into 80 % for training + validation and 20 % for testing. The dataset was used with the YOLOv5 (You Only Look Once) deep learning architecture. The YOLOv5 was the newest YOLO model during this study carried out. All neural networks provided by YOLOv5 (nano, small, medium, large, and xlarge) were trained and the Precision, Recall, F-1 Score, and AUC (Area under the Curve) performances of the neural networks were evaluated. The YOLOv5s (small) was the most precise neural network in detecting weeds regardless of the species. In contrast, nano was the least precise neural network in detecting each weed species. For CT, when small neural network was used, precision of detection ranged from 0.87 (fruit stage) to 0.96 (rosette and vegetative stages). For, forking larkspur, the best neural network was achieved with YOLOv5 small and the precision ranged from 0.45 (fruit stage) to 0.93 (vegetative stage). Using YOLOv5 small in Charlock mustard, the most precise detection occurred at seedling, rosette, and vegetative stages (with precision of 0.96) and the least precise detection was recorded at the fruit stage (0.81). Other performance evaluations (Recall, F-1 Score, and AUC) were in agreement with those of Precision. Our results indicated that by using YOLOv5 small neural network, all three weed species could be detected at all growth stages with the precision of 0.86 with the exception of fruit stage. Future research should (1) focus on assessing YOLOv5 small neural network with the newest versions of YOLO and also (2) evaluate this neural network for detecting weed species in wheat fields to allow for improved weed control and future recommendations.

Weed detection using deep learning in complex and highly occluded potato field environment

Weed management is a significant challenge for agronomists, especially in highly dense field environments. The study aims to develop a computer vision-based system for distinguishing between potato plants and weeds in the post-emergence stage within high occlusion and complex backgrounds. To achieve this, the RGB dataset having real images was collected from potato farms. After thorough cleaning, the data augmentation was done. Images are annotated at the pixel level and are made freely available to the research community for future investigations. To accurately segment, detect, and classify the potato plant from the weeds, cutting-edge deep learning techniques, i.e., the Mask RCNN and YOLO version 8 (YOLOv8), are trained. Precision (P), recall (R), and mean average precision (mAP@0.5, mAP@0.50-0.95) were used to evaluate the different model scales. YOLOv8 obtained the mAP@0.50 83.4%, whereas Mask RCNN stood at 79%. Mask RCNN obtained the highest P(0.83), R(0.76), and F1(0.91) values for the weed class. The reported performance metrics indicate that although YOLOv8 slightly outperforms Mask RCNN in overall mAP, Mask RCNN achieves higher precision, recall, and F1 scores for the weed class. This implies that Mask RCNN may be more effective at identifying weeds, which is crucial for effective weed management. These accuracy levels may not be exceptional, but they are a testament to the model's capabilities for weed detection in a highly complex and heavily occluded environment.

Comparative performance analysis of YOLO object detection algorithms for weed detection in agriculture

Comparative performance analysis of YOLO object detection algorithms for weed detection in agriculture

Research on improvement strategies for a lightweight multi-object weed detection network based on YOLOv5

Traditional weed detection technology has several limitations, including low detection accuracy, substantial computational demands, and large-scale detection models. To meet the requirements of weed multi-target identification and portability, this study proposes the YOLO–WEED model for weed recognition. The proposed model has the following innovations: (1) The backbone standard convolution module in YOLOv5 was replaced by the lightweight MobileNetv3 network to simplify the network structure and reduce parameter complexity; (2) The addition of convolutional block attention module (CBAM) to the neck network enabled the model to focus on the most important features while filtering out noise and irrelevant information; (3) To further improve classification accuracy and reduce loss, the C2f module was employed to improve the C3 module in the neck network; and (4) During the model plot process, a coordinate variable was added in the box label to help the model accurately locate the weeds. In the study, six species of weeds and one crop were used as test subjects. After image enhancement techniques were used, ablation experiments were deployed. The experimental results indicated that the YOLO–WEED model achieved an average accuracy of 92.5% in identifying six types of weeds and one type of crop. The accuracies for each type of plant were 82.7%, 97.3%, 98.8%, 86%, 93.5%, 99.3% and 89.6%, respectively. The number of model parameters was reduced by 39.4% compared with YOLOv5s. Furthermore, the localisation, classification and object losses were reduced by 0.025, 0.005 and 0.014, respectively. The model optimisation and deployment of the Jetson mobile terminal for multi-target detection were realised, and the performance was better than six network models such as YOLOv5s.

Performance evaluation of semi-supervised learning frameworks for multi-class weed detection.

Precision weed management (PWM), driven by machine vision and deep learning (DL) advancements, not only enhances agricultural product quality and optimizes crop yield but also provides a sustainable alternative to herbicide use. However, existing DL-based algorithms on weed detection are mainly developed based on supervised learning approaches, typically demanding large-scale datasets with manual-labeled annotations, which can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. As such, label-efficient learning methods, especially semi-supervised learning, have gained increased attention in the broader domain of computer vision and have demonstrated promising performance. These methods aim to utilize a small number of labeled data samples along with a great number of unlabeled samples to develop high-performing models comparable to the supervised learning counterpart trained on a large amount of labeled data samples. In this study, we assess the effectiveness of a semi-supervised learning framework for multi-class weed detection, employing two well-known object detection frameworks, namely FCOS (Fully Convolutional One-Stage Object Detection) and Faster-RCNN (Faster Region-based Convolutional Networks). Specifically, we evaluate a generalized student-teacher framework with an improved pseudo-label generation module to produce reliable pseudo-labels for the unlabeled data. To enhance generalization, an ensemble student network is employed to facilitate the training process. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is able to achieve approximately 76% and 96% detection accuracy as the supervised methods with only 10% of labeled data in CottonWeedDet3 and CottonWeedDet12, respectively. We offer access to the source code (https://github.com/JiajiaLi04/SemiWeeds), contributing a valuable resource for ongoing semi-supervised learning research in weed detection and beyond.

Cognitive Computing Advancements: Improving Precision Crop Protection through UAV Imagery for Targeted Weed Monitoring

Early detection of weeds is crucial to manage weeds effectively, support decision-making and prevent potential crop losses. This research presents an innovative approach to develop a specialized cognitive system for classifying and detecting early-stage weeds at the species level. The primary objective was to create an automated multiclass discrimination system using cognitive computing, regardless of the weed growth stage. Initially, the model was trained and tested on a dataset of 31,002 UAV images, including ten weed species manually identified by experts at the early phenological stages of maize (BBCH14) and tomato (BBCH501). The images were captured at 11 m above ground level. This resulted in a classification accuracy exceeding 99.1% using the vision transformer Swin-T model. Subsequently, generative modeling was employed for data augmentation, resulting in new classification models based on the Swin-T architecture. These models were evaluated on an unbalanced dataset of 36,556 UAV images captured at later phenological stages (maize BBCH17 and tomato BBCH509), achieving a weighted average F1-score ranging from 94.8% to 95.3%. This performance highlights the system’s adaptability to morphological variations and its robustness in diverse crop scenarios, suggesting that the system can be effectively implemented in real agricultural scenarios, significantly reducing the time and resources required for weed identification. The proposed data augmentation technique also proved to be effective in implementing the detection transformer architecture, significantly improving the generalization capability and enabling accurate detection of weeds at different growth stages. The research represents a significant advancement in weed monitoring across phenological stages, with potential applications in precision agriculture and sustainable crop management. Furthermore, the methodology showcases the versatility of the latest generation models for application in other knowledge domains, facilitating time-efficient model development. Future research could investigate the applicability of the model in different geographical regions and with different types of crops, as well as real-time implementation for continuous field monitoring.

Field-based multispecies weed and crop detection using ground robots and advanced YOLO models: A data and model-centric approach

The implementation of a machine-vision system for real-time precision weed management is a crucial step towards the development of smart spraying robotic vehicles. The intelligent machine-vision system, constructed using deep learning object detection models, has the potential to accurately detect weeds and crops from images. Both data-centric and model-centric approaches of deep learning model development offer advantages depending on environment and non-environment factors. To assess the performance of weed detection in real-field conditions for eight crop species, the Yolov8, Yolov9, and customized Yolov9 deep learning models were trained and evaluated using RGB images from four locations (Casselton, Fargo, and Carrington) over a two-year period in the Great Plains region of the U.S. The experiment encompassed eight crop species—dry bean, canola, corn, field pea, flax, lentil, soybean, and sugar beet—and five weed species—horseweed, kochia, redroot pigweed, common ragweed, and water hemp. Six Yolov8 and eight Yolov9 model variants were trained using annotated weed and crop images gathered from four different sites including combined dataset from four sites. The Yolov8 and Yolov9 models’ performance in weed detection were assessed based on mean average precision (mAP50) metrics for five datasets, eight crop species, and five weed species. The results of the weed and crop detection evaluation showed high mAP50 values of 86.2 %. The mAP50 values for individual weed and crop species detection ranged from 80.8 % to 98 %. The results demonstrated that the performance of the model varied by model type (model-centric), location due to environment (data-centric), data size (data-centric), data quality (data-centric), and object size in the image (data-centric). Nevertheless, the Yolov9 customized lightweight model has the potential to play a significant role in building a real time machine-vision-based precision weed management system.

Weed detection and classification in sesame crops using region-based convolution neural networks

Weed detection and classification in sesame crops using region-based convolution neural networks

Development and evaluation of a machine vision and deep learning-based smart sprayer system for site-specific weed management in row crops: An edge computing approach

Traditional weed management often involves blanket herbicide spraying, resulting in substantial herbicide wastage, environmental concerns, and herbicide resistant issues. Smart spraying systems utilizing robotics and sensors technologies can minimize herbicide usage and provide a sustainable solution for site-specific weed management. A machine vision-based spraying system was designed and developed for weed identification and precise spray application onto the target weeds. The sprayer platform utilizes a deep learning YOLOv4 model to accurately recognize multiple weed species, facilitating targeted spray application. The platform is equipped with an FLIR RGB camera for real-time image acquisition and Nvidia Jetson AGX Orin edge device for deploying weed detection deep-learning model. The GPIO pins of Nvidia Jetson were utilized to activate relay, providing precise on/off control over the TeeJet solenoid valves for spot spraying. Both indoor and field experiments were conducted to evaluate and compare the performance of vision-based sprayer system for weed identification and precise spraying onto the target weeds. In the indoor experiment, the sprayer system showed the average effective spraying rate of 93.33 %, with the precision of 100 % and recall of 92.8 %. Conversely, the field experiment resulted in a slightly lower average effective spraying rate of 90.6 %, while maintaining a precision of 95.5 % and a recall of 89.47 %. The reduced accuracy of the spraying system in field experiment was due to varying outdoor conditions such as lighting, shadows, and wind velocity. Overall, the result of this study demonstrates the spraying system's potential for targeted herbicide application onto the grid cells containing weeds, effectively reducing herbicide usage and overall weed management costs.

Research on Weed Reverse Detection Methods Based on Improved You Only Look Once (YOLO) v8: Preliminary Results

The rapid and accurate detection of weeds is the prerequisite and foundation for precision weeding, automation, and intelligent field operations. Due to the wide variety of weeds in the field and their significant morphological differences, most existing detection methods can only recognize major crops and weeds, with a pressing need to enhance accuracy. This study introduces a novel weed detection approach that integrates the GFPN (Green Feature Pyramid Network), Slide Loss, and multi-SEAM (Spatial and Enhancement Attention Modules) to enhance accuracy and improve efficiency. This approach recognizes crop seedlings utilizing an improved YOLO v8 algorithm, followed by the reverse detection of weeds through graphics processing technology. The experimental results demonstrated that the improved YOLO v8 model achieved remarkable performance, with an accuracy of 92.9%, a recall rate of 87.0%, and an F1 score of 90%. The detection speed was approximately 22.47 ms per image. And when shooting from a height ranging from 80 cm to 100 cm in the field test, the crop detection effect was the best. This reverse weed detection method addresses the challenges posed by weed diversity and complexities in image recognition modeling, thereby contributing to the enhancement of automated and intelligent weeding efficiency and quality. It also provides valuable technical support for precision weeding in farmland operations.

A new strategy for weed detection in maize fields

Timely determination of weed distributions in fields is crucial for the precise spraying of herbicides. This facilitates weed control while saving costs and protecting the environment. Existing weed detection strategies often rely on the utilization of numerous weed samples to train detection models directly, which presents challenges in situations involving limited weed samples. To address this issue, a novel weed detection strategy was proposed in this study to identify weeds accurately in fields with varying coverage levels. For this purpose, red–green–blue (RGB) images of maize fields with different weed coverage levels were captured via a vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The UAV images were first mosaicked, and a new weed detection strategy was developed and assessed. In this process, the MeanShift segmentation method, coupled with the local variance (LV) segmentation evaluation function and the Otsu automatic classification method, was initially employed to extract vegetation areas. The you-only-look-once (YOLO) v5n model was subsequently improved and used to detect maize plants. Finally, weed mapping was achieved by removing the identified maize plants from the vegetation through overlay analysis. The evaluation of the proposed method via an external dataset yielded favorable weed detection results, with an R2 value of 0.96 and a root mean square error (RMSE) value of 3.08 % under the different weed coverage levels. Specifically, in addition to adjusting the activation function and the nonmaximum suppression method, the impacts of integrating various attention modules at different positions on the performance of the YOLO v5n model for maize plant detection were analyzed. Improving the YOLO v5n model by incorporating the efficient channel attention (ECA) module into the backbone of the original model and utilizing the Hardswish activation function is recommended. Overall, this study offers support for precise weed control.

Drone Technology for Crop Disease Resistance: Innovations and Challenges

Drones have been used for diverse application purposes in precision agriculture and new ways of using them are being explored. Many drone applications have been developed for different purposes such as pest detection, crop yield prediction, crop spraying, yield estimation, water stress detection, land mapping, identifying nutrient deficiency in plants, weed detection, livestock control, protection of agricultural products and soil analysis. Drones can create georeferenced maps that pinpoint the exact location of disease outbreaks within a field. These maps help farmers and agronomists monitor disease progression and plan targeted interventions. Drone operations are highly dependent on weather conditions. High winds, rain, and fog can hinder drone flights and affect the quality of images captured. Addressing technical limitations, regulatory and safety concerns, economic barriers, and data management issues will be crucial for the widespread adoption of drones in agriculture. By overcoming these challenges, drone technology can become a vital tool in sustainable and effective crop disease management.

SHIELD: A Secure Heuristic Integrated Environment for Load Distribution in Rural-AI

The increasing adoption of edge computing in rural areas is leading to a substantial rise in data generation, necessitating the need for development of advanced load balancing algorithms. This is particularly important in applications that utilise existing, though limited, computational and data communication infrastructures. Furthermore, rural communities have growing concerns regarding the privacy, security, and ownership of the data produced within their agricultural fields. Load distribution in rural edge devices can enhance agricultural practices by improving resource usage, decision-making, and addressing network connectivity challenges. Managing resource utilisation in this way also improves economic investments made in managing and deploying edge devices in rural environments. In this work, we propose SHIELD, a security-aware load balancing framework, primarily designed for edge-based systems in rural areas. For handling environments with limited connectivity, SHIELD efficiently manages tasks and computational resources by categorising them into restricted, public and private, shared respectively. It also allocates tasks considering key performance factors such as completion time, resource utilisation, failure rate, and security. The framework is evaluated on a weed detection scenario in precision agriculture, using three federated learning (FL) variants (local model training, global model aggregation, and model prediction) with the ResNet-50 model trained on the DeepWeeds image classification dataset. The proposed framework also integrates encryption and task replication techniques for data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Experimental results show that SHIELD demonstrates an average of 23% (using Parsl), 29% (using OpenWhisk) improvement in failure rate and 18 s (Parsl), 13 s (OpenWhisk) average improvement in makespan compared to other task allocation approaches, such as secure variants of random, round robin, and least loaded.

New segmentation approach for effective weed management in agriculture

Accurate weed detection in agricultural images is a crucial challenge for improving crop management practices and reducing chemical usage. In this study, we propose an innovative segmentation model called DWUNet, inspired by popular architectures and incorporating the latest advances in the state of the art. Our model delivers remarkable accuracy, with a Jaccard index reaching 0.825, while ensuring fast inference speed of only 8 ms per image, thus providing an optimal solution for real-time applications. By comparing DWUNet to several state-of-the-art models, we demonstrate its superiority in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Furthermore, a qualitative analysis of the visual results confirms DWUNet's ability to accurately detect weeds and generalize results beyond the training data. This study represents a significant advancement in the field of precision agriculture, providing a powerful tool for sustainable crop management and reducing environmental impact.

Weed detection in precision agriculture: leveraging encoder-decoder models for semantic segmentation

Weed detection in precision agriculture: leveraging encoder-decoder models for semantic segmentation

UAV imaging hyperspectral for barnyard identification and spatial distribution in paddy fields

Barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli), a noxious weed prevalent in rice fields, poses a significant threat to rice growth and development, ultimately leading to substantial yield reductions. Its morphological resemblance to rice plants complicates its identification and management. Consequently, accurately identifying and mapping barnyard grass in intricate rice field environments holds substantial research value and significance. Furthermore, most existing weed detection studies rely on single-day data, limiting the models’ generalizability. Therefore, incorporating multi-temporal data into modeling is highly desirable. This study utilized an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to capture multi-temporal, low-altitude hyperspectral imagery of paddy fields, which were subsequently stitched, calibrated, and filtered using the SG convolution filter. The continuous projection algorithm (SPA) was employed to extract sensitive bands for discriminating between rice and barnyard grass. Initially, single-time data was utilized for barnyard grass identification, with models such as support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), 1D convolutional neural network (1DCNN), and 3D convolutional neural network (3DCNN) constructed using both full-spectrum and feature bands. The results indicated that the SPA-3DCNN model exhibited the highest performance in identifying rice (F1-score: 0.942) and barnyard grass (F1-score: 0.8936). Seven selected feature bands (482.5234, 546.5415, 675.0806, 709.1382, 762.0431, 922.0157, and 944.6371 nm) were found to be highly discriminative for distinguishing barnyard grass from rice. Subsequently, multi-temporal data modeling was employed to enhance the models’ generalization ability, resulting in improved overall accuracy (OA) and Kappa coefficients for each model, along with reduced misclassification rates. The spatial distribution maps also exhibited better performance with increased temporal data. The infestation trend of barnyard grass was visualized using multi-temporal difference maps, and a density map of barnyard grass was generated through image binarization. This study successfully demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing UAV-borne hyperspectral imagery for identifying barnyard grass in complex paddy field environments. By improving the model’s generalization ability through multi-temporal modeling, the study provided robust data support for managing and preventing barnyard grass infestations, including the creation of spatial distribution and density maps for barnyard grass.

YOLOv8 Model for Weed Detection in Wheat Fields Based on a Visual Converter and Multi-Scale Feature Fusion.

Accurate weed detection is essential for the precise control of weeds in wheat fields, but weeds and wheat are sheltered from each other, and there is no clear size specification, making it difficult to accurately detect weeds in wheat. To achieve the precise identification of weeds, wheat weed datasets were constructed, and a wheat field weed detection model, YOLOv8-MBM, based on improved YOLOv8s, was proposed. In this study, a lightweight visual converter (MobileViTv3) was introduced into the C2f module to enhance the detection accuracy of the model by integrating input, local (CNN), and global (ViT) features. Secondly, a bidirectional feature pyramid network (BiFPN) was introduced to enhance the performance of multi-scale feature fusion. Furthermore, to address the weak generalization and slow convergence speed of the CIoU loss function for detection tasks, the bounding box regression loss function (MPDIOU) was used instead of the CIoU loss function to improve the convergence speed of the model and further enhance the detection performance. Finally, the model performance was tested on the wheat weed datasets. The experiments show that the YOLOv8-MBM proposed in this paper is superior to Fast R-CNN, YOLOv3, YOLOv4-tiny, YOLOv5s, YOLOv7, YOLOv9, and other mainstream models in regards to detection performance. The accuracy of the improved model reaches 92.7%. Compared with the original YOLOv8s model, the precision, recall, mAP1, and mAP2 are increased by 10.6%, 8.9%, 9.7%, and 9.3%, respectively. In summary, the YOLOv8-MBM model successfully meets the requirements for accurate weed detection in wheat fields.

AI Robots in Various Sector

The convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics is revolutionizing multiple sectors, enhancing productivity, safety, and quality. In manufacturing, AI-driven robots automate assembly lines, optimize logistics, and perform precision tasks. These robots adapt to changing production demands, improving efficiency and reducing errors. In agriculture, vision-based AI assists robots in weed detection, crop scouting, disease identification, and harvesting. By integrating AI algorithms with sensors, agricultural robots enhance yield prediction and resource management. In healthcare, surgical robots aid in minimally invasive procedures, while AI algorithms analyze medical images for early disease detection. The synergy between AI and robotics holds immense potential, reshaping industries and advancing human well-being

Improvement of the YOLOv8 Model in the Optimization of the Weed Recognition Algorithm in Cotton Field.

Due to the existence of cotton weeds in a complex cotton field environment with many different species, dense distribution, partial occlusion, and small target phenomena, the use of the YOLO algorithm is prone to problems such as low detection accuracy, serious misdetection, etc. In this study, we propose a YOLOv8-DMAS model for the detection of cotton weeds in complex environments based on the YOLOv8 detection algorithm. To enhance the ability of the model to capture multi-scale features of different weeds, all the BottleNeck are replaced by the Dilation-wise Residual Module (DWR) in the C2f network, and the Multi-Scale module (MSBlock) is added in the last layer of the backbone. Additionally, a small-target detection layer is added to the head structure to avoid the omission of small-target weed detection, and the Adaptively Spatial Feature Fusion mechanism (ASFF) is used to improve the detection head to solve the spatial inconsistency problem of feature fusion. Finally, the original Non-maximum suppression (NMS) method is replaced with SoftNMS to improve the accuracy under dense weed detection. In comparison to YOLO v8s, the experimental results show that the improved YOLOv8-DMAS improves accuracy, recall, mAP0.5, and mAP0.5:0.95 by 1.7%, 3.8%, 2.1%, and 3.7%, respectively. Furthermore, compared to the mature target detection algorithms YOLOv5s, YOLOv7, and SSD, it improves 4.8%, 4.5%, and 5.9% on mAP0.5:0.95, respectively. The results show that the improved model could accurately detect cotton weeds in complex field environments in real time and provide technical support for intelligent weeding research.