Applications of Robotics/UAVs and Computer Vision in Agricultural Engineering

A special issue of AgriEngineering (ISSN 2624-7402). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer Applications and Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2027 | Viewed by 277

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
Interests: robotics; route planning; precision agriculture; machine learning; optimization; simulation

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
Interests: operations research; route planning; logistics; supply chain management; system engineering; precision agriculture
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E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural, Food, and Forest Sciences (SAAF), Viale delle Scienze, Building 4, “H” Entry, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Interests: precision and digital farming; vineyard spatial variability monitoring; proximal and remote sensing; agricultural engineering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The increasing integration of robotics/unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and computer vision technologies is reshaping the landscape of modern agricultural engineering. These innovations are driving the transition toward intelligent, data-driven, and sustainable farming systems capable of addressing global challenges such as labor shortages, environmental sustainability, and food security. Robotics and UAVs equipped with advanced sensors and vision-based algorithms enable precise field operations, continuous crop monitoring, and real-time decision-making. This Special Issue aims to highlight cutting-edge research and practical advancements that explore how these technologies contribute to improving efficiency, productivity, and sustainability across all stages of agricultural production.

Research Areas

This Special Issue welcomes original research articles, reviews, and technical papers focusing on (but not limited to) the following areas:

  • Autonomous Agricultural Robots and UAVs.
  • Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture.
  • UAV-Based Remote Sensing and Mapping.
  • Coverage Path Planning and Cooperative Navigation.
  • Multi-Sensor Fusion and Perception Systems.
  • Automation of Agricultural Operations.
  • AI-Driven Decision Support Systems.
  • Simulation and Digital Twin Technologies.
  • Sustainability, Safety, and Environmental Assessment.

Dr. Mahdi Vahdanjoo
Prof. Dr. Claus Grøn Sørensen
Dr. Massimo Ferro
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. AgriEngineering is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 1800 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

  • agricultural robotics
  • unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVS)
  • precision agriculture
  • computer vision
  • artificial intelligence (AI)
  • machine/deep learning
  • field automation
  • autonomous navigation
  • coverage path planning
  • sensor fusion
  • remote sensing
  • crop monitoring
  • digital twin
  • smart farming
  • decision support systems
  • sustainable agriculture

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

22 pages, 17044 KB  
Article
Deployment-Aware NAS for Lightweight UAV Object Detectors in Precision Agriculture Crop Monitoring
by Jaša Kerec, Alina L. Machidon and Octavian M. Machidon
AgriEngineering 2026, 8(2), 43; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering8020043 - 1 Feb 2026
Viewed by 113
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become essential tools for monitoring crop condition, detecting early signs of plant stress, and supporting timely interventions in modern precision agriculture. However, real-time onboard image analysis remains challenging due to the limited computational and energy resources of small [...] Read more.
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become essential tools for monitoring crop condition, detecting early signs of plant stress, and supporting timely interventions in modern precision agriculture. However, real-time onboard image analysis remains challenging due to the limited computational and energy resources of small embedded UAV platforms. This work presents a deployment-aware neural architecture search (NAS) framework for discovering lightweight object detection networks explicitly optimized for edge hardware constraints. Building on the YOLOv8n baseline, the proposed NAS procedure yields detector architectures that substantially reduce computational load while preserving high detection accuracy for agricultural field monitoring tasks. The best-discovered model reduces GFLOPs by 37.0% and parameters by 61.3% compared to YOLOv8n, with only a 1.96% decrease in mAP@50. When deployed on an NVIDIA Jetson Nano, it achieves a 28.1% increase in inference speed and an 18.5% improvement in energy efficiency under ONNX Runtime, with additional gains using TensorRT FP16. Evaluation on wheat head and cotton seedling datasets demonstrates strong generalization across crop types and varying imaging conditions. By enabling highly efficient onboard inference, the proposed NAS framework supports practical UAV-based crop monitoring workflows and contributes to the development of responsive, field-ready remote sensing systems in resource-limited environments. Full article
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