How Optical Sensors and Deep Learning Enhance Production Management in Smart Agriculture—2nd Edition

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Artificial Intelligence and Digital Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2026 | Viewed by 901

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Information and Electrical Engineering, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, China
Interests: RTM; crop model; UAV; crop mapping
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Information and Management Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450046, China
Interests: remote sensing; smart agriculture; UAV; artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The integration of optical sensors and deep learning (DL) into farming has revolutionized traditional agricultural practices—from early simple linear regression to advanced DL-driven predictive analytics, the journey has been marked by significant technological advancements aimed at optimizing crop yields and resource management.

Consequently, this Special Issue aims to highlight the transformative impact of optical sensors and DL on smart agriculture, and seeks to highlight innovative applications, address current challenges, and discuss future directions. We invite contributions that showcase the latest research in optical sensor technology and DL applications in agriculture, and topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • DL algorithms for crop monitoring (e.g., crop growth monitoring and crop yield prediction);
  • DL-based real-time crop monitoring solutions for unmanned ground vehicles and aerial vehicles (e.g., crop phenotyping);
  • DL applications for field management (e.g., disease or pest control).

We solicit, therefore, original research articles, review papers, and case studies that provide insights into the practical implementation and benefits of optical sensors and DL in agriculture. We look forward to receiving your contributions, which will continue to drive the future of smart agriculture.

Prof. Dr. Fenghua Yu
Dr. Haikuan Feng
Dr. Chengquan Zhou
Dr. Meiyan Shu
Dr. Jibo Yue
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • optical sensors
  • deep learning
  • crop health monitoring
  • yield prediction
  • crop phenology
  • crop growth monitoring
  • unmanned aerial vehicles
  • unmanned ground vehicles

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

25 pages, 3259 KB  
Article
Enhancing Near-Infrared Estimation of Total Nitrogen in Manure Slurry by Integrating Contextual Farm Information with MultiScaleSE-GatedCNN
by Hao Liang, Jinwu Li, Qiang Zhang, Ziyu Liu, Beihan Han, Xiongwei Lou, Nan Wang and Yufei Lin
Agriculture 2026, 16(9), 965; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture16090965 - 28 Apr 2026
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Abstract
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers significant advantages for the rapid and non-destructive detection of nutrients in livestock manure slurry. However, conventional models based only on spectral features often show limited robustness under cross-seasonal and multi-farm conditions due to differences in farm source, treatment stage, [...] Read more.
Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) offers significant advantages for the rapid and non-destructive detection of nutrients in livestock manure slurry. However, conventional models based only on spectral features often show limited robustness under cross-seasonal and multi-farm conditions due to differences in farm source, treatment stage, and complex spatiotemporal background. To improve the accuracy and applicability of total nitrogen (TN) prediction in dairy farm manure slurry, this study used 747 samples collected from 36 large-scale dairy farms in Tianjin, China, covering 24 treatment stages and four seasons, together with sample-contextual information such as farm name, longitude, latitude, and season. Competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) was applied to select key wavelengths from near-infrared spectra. On this basis, a multi-branch gated fusion deep learning model, MultiScaleSE-GatedCNN, was developed to integrate spectral and sample-contextual information. The model combines multi-scale one-dimensional convolution for spectral feature extraction, separate encoding branches for numerical and categorical inputs, and a gated fusion unit for adaptive weighting of different information sources. Results showed that partial least squares regression remained a strong baseline under single-source spectral conditions, but the proposed deep learning fusion model achieved superior predictive performance after introducing sample-contextual information. Ablation experiments demonstrated that different combinations of sample-contextual information contributed differently to model performance, and the combination of spectra, farm name, longitude, and season yielded the best results. Under this optimal input combination, MultiScaleSE-GatedCNN achieved a test-set R2 of 0.905, an RMSEP of 367.389, and an RPD of 3.242. These results demonstrate that integrating NIRS with sample-contextual information can effectively improve the accuracy and robustness of TN prediction in dairy farm manure slurry. Full article
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