Next-Generation Vision Systems in Agriculture—Toward Explainable and Trustworthy AI

A special issue of Information (ISSN 2078-2489). This special issue belongs to the section "Artificial Intelligence".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2026 | Viewed by 2115

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Nebraska Water Center & Biological Systems Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Interests: deep learning; computer vision; edge computing; context-aware intelligence

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Guest Editor
School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA
Interests: computer vision; data analytics; artificial intelligence; precision agriculture
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The MDPI journal Information invites submissions to a Special Issue on “Next-Generation Vision Systems in Agriculture — Toward Explainable and Trustworthy AI.”

The rapid evolution of AI and deep learning has revolutionized computer vision, enabling breakthroughs across diverse domains. In agriculture, these technologies are transforming how we monitor crops, detect diseases, estimate yields, manage resources, and ensure food security. However, real-world deployment in agricultural settings demands more than just accuracy—it requires robustness to environmental variability, interpretability for domain experts, multimodal integration (e.g., combining satellite, drone, and sensor data), and trustworthiness to support critical decision making.

This Special Issue aims to bring together cutting-edge research that pushes the boundaries of vision intelligence in agriculture. We invite original contributions that explore novel models, algorithms, systems, and applications that enhance the adaptability, explainability, and reliability of computer vision in complex, real-world agricultural environments.

Topics of Interest (non-exhaustive):

  • Multimodal learning combining vision with text, audio, or sensor data (e.g., soil, weather, hyperspectral);
  • Vision transformers and foundation models for agricultural perception tasks;
  • Explainable and interpretable deep vision systems for plant disease detection, phenotyping, and yield prediction;
  • Self-supervised, few-shot, and zero-shot learning for rare crop conditions and underrepresented regions;
  • Robustness to adversarial attacks and domain shifts in field conditions;
  • Trustworthy and ethical AI in agricultural decision support systems;
  • Real-time and edge deployment of vision models on drones, robots, and IoT devices;
  • Generative models (GANs, diffusion models) for synthetic data generation in agriculture;
  • Human–AI collaboration in visual decision making for precision agriculture;
  • Benchmark datasets, evaluation metrics, and open challenges in agricultural vision.

Dr. Alakananda Mitra
Dr. Sruti Das Choudhury
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. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

  • artificial intelligence
  • machine learning
  • computer vision

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 4282 KB  
Article
FPGA-Accelerated Machine Learning for Computational Environmental Information Processing in IoT-Integrated High-Density Nanosensor Networks
by Alaa Kamal Yousif Dafhalla, Fawzia Awad Elhassan Ali, Asma Ibrahim Gamar Eldeen, Ikhlas Saad Ahmed, Ameni Filali, Amel Mohamed essaket Zahou, Amal Abdallah AlShaer, Suhier Bashir Ahmed Elfaki, Rabaa Mohammed Eltayeb and Tijjani Adam
Information 2026, 17(4), 354; https://doi.org/10.3390/info17040354 - 8 Apr 2026
Viewed by 374
Abstract
This study presents a nanosensor network system for autonomous microclimate optimization in precision horticulture, leveraging a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based control architecture that is integrated with an edge-level machine learning inference. Unlike the conventional greenhouse automation systems, which exhibit thermal and hygroscopic hysteresis [...] Read more.
This study presents a nanosensor network system for autonomous microclimate optimization in precision horticulture, leveraging a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based control architecture that is integrated with an edge-level machine learning inference. Unlike the conventional greenhouse automation systems, which exhibit thermal and hygroscopic hysteresis often exceeding 32 °C and 78% relative humidity, the proposed framework embeds a random forest regression (RFR) model directly within the Altera DE2-115 FPGA fabric to enable predictive environmental regulation. The model achieved an R2 of 0.985 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.28 °C, allowing proactive compensation for the thermodynamic disturbances from the high-intensity light-emitting diode (LED) lighting with a 120 s predictive horizon. The real-time monitoring and remote supervision were supported via a NodeMCU-based IoT gateway, achieving a 140 ms mean communication latency and a 99.8% packet delivery reliability. The preliminary validation using lettuce (Lactuca sativa) optimized the environmental parameters, while the subsequent experiments with pepper (Capsicum annuum), a commercially important and environmentally sensitive crop, demonstrated system performance under real-world conditions. The control system maintained a temperature and humidity within ±0.3 °C and ±1.2% of the setpoints, respectively, and outperformed the baseline rule-based control with a 28% increase in fresh biomass, a 22% improvement in dry matter accumulation, a 25% reduction in actuator duty-cycle switching, and an 18% decrease in overall energy consumption. These results highlight the efficacy of FPGA-integrated edge intelligence combined with low-latency IoT telemetry as a scalable, energy-efficient, and high-fidelity solution for sub-degree environmental control in next-generation, controlled-environment, and vertical farming systems. Full article
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24 pages, 5772 KB  
Article
Method for Generating Pseudo-NDVI from RVI Derived from Satellite-Borne SAR Imagery Data Using CycleGAN and pix2pix Models
by Kohei Arai, Ria Maruta and Hiroshi Okumura
Information 2026, 17(2), 154; https://doi.org/10.3390/info17020154 - 3 Feb 2026
Viewed by 1198
Abstract
Continuous vegetation monitoring is essential for predicting crop varieties and yields; however, optical satellite data are frequently unavailable due to cloud cover. To overcome this limitation, this study proposes a method for generating pseudo-NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) imagery from RVI (Radar Vegetation [...] Read more.
Continuous vegetation monitoring is essential for predicting crop varieties and yields; however, optical satellite data are frequently unavailable due to cloud cover. To overcome this limitation, this study proposes a method for generating pseudo-NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) imagery from RVI (Radar Vegetation Index) derived from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Two architectures—pix2pixHD (supervised) and CycleGAN (unsupervised)—were evaluated using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data under identical conditions. By introducing RVI as an intermediate feature instead of directly converting SAR backscatter to NDVI, the proposed method enhanced physical interpretability and improved correlation with NDVI. Quantitative results show that pix2pix achieved higher accuracy (SSIM = 0.5667, PSNR = 22.24 dB, RMSE = 20.54) than CycleGAN (SSIM = 0.5240, PSNR = 19.54 dB, RMSE = 28.02), with further improvement when combining VV and VH polarization data. Although the absolute accuracy remains moderate, this approach enables continuous annual NDVI time series reconstruction for crop monitoring under persistent cloud conditions, demonstrating clear advantages over conventional direct SAR-to-NDVI conversion methods. Full article
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