Resource-Constrained UAV-Based Weed Detection for Site-Specific Management on Edge Devices

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wang, Linyuan, Yao, Haibo, Tseng, Te-Ming, Betitame, Kelvin, Sun, Xin, Huang, Hanbo, Chen, Dong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Wang, Linyuan
Yao, Haibo
Tseng, Te-Ming
Betitame, Kelvin
Sun, Xin
Huang, Hanbo
Chen, Dong
author_facet Wang, Linyuan
Yao, Haibo
Tseng, Te-Ming
Betitame, Kelvin
Sun, Xin
Huang, Hanbo
Chen, Dong
contents Weeds compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients, reducing yield and crop quality. Efficient weed detection is essential for site-specific weed management (SSWM). Although deep learning models have been deployed on UAV-based edge systems, a systematic understanding of how different model architectures perform under real-world resource constraints is still lacking. To address this gap, this study proposes a deployment-oriented framework for real-time UAV-based weed detection on resource-constrained edge platforms. The framework integrates UAV data acquisition, model development, and on-device inference, with a focus on balancing detection accuracy and computational efficiency. A diverse set of state-of-the-art object detection models is evaluated, including convolution-based YOLO models (v8-v12) and transformer-based RT-DETR models (v1-v2). Experiments on three edge devices (Jetson Orin Nano, Jetson AGX Xavier, and Jetson AGX Orin) demonstrate clear trade-offs between accuracy and inference latency across models and hardware configurations. Results show that high-capacity models achieve up to 86.9% mAP50 but suffer from high latency, limiting real-time deployment. In contrast, lightweight models achieve 66%-71% mAP50 with significantly lower latency, enabling real-time performance. Among all models, RT-DETRv2-R50-M achieves competitive accuracy (79% mAP50) with improved efficiency, while YOLOv10n provides the fastest inference speed. YOLOv11s and RT-DETRv2-R50-M offer the best balance between accuracy and speed, making them strong candidates for real-time UAV deployment.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_23442
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Resource-Constrained UAV-Based Weed Detection for Site-Specific Management on Edge Devices
Wang, Linyuan
Yao, Haibo
Tseng, Te-Ming
Betitame, Kelvin
Sun, Xin
Huang, Hanbo
Chen, Dong
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Weeds compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients, reducing yield and crop quality. Efficient weed detection is essential for site-specific weed management (SSWM). Although deep learning models have been deployed on UAV-based edge systems, a systematic understanding of how different model architectures perform under real-world resource constraints is still lacking. To address this gap, this study proposes a deployment-oriented framework for real-time UAV-based weed detection on resource-constrained edge platforms. The framework integrates UAV data acquisition, model development, and on-device inference, with a focus on balancing detection accuracy and computational efficiency. A diverse set of state-of-the-art object detection models is evaluated, including convolution-based YOLO models (v8-v12) and transformer-based RT-DETR models (v1-v2). Experiments on three edge devices (Jetson Orin Nano, Jetson AGX Xavier, and Jetson AGX Orin) demonstrate clear trade-offs between accuracy and inference latency across models and hardware configurations. Results show that high-capacity models achieve up to 86.9% mAP50 but suffer from high latency, limiting real-time deployment. In contrast, lightweight models achieve 66%-71% mAP50 with significantly lower latency, enabling real-time performance. Among all models, RT-DETRv2-R50-M achieves competitive accuracy (79% mAP50) with improved efficiency, while YOLOv10n provides the fastest inference speed. YOLOv11s and RT-DETRv2-R50-M offer the best balance between accuracy and speed, making them strong candidates for real-time UAV deployment.
title Resource-Constrained UAV-Based Weed Detection for Site-Specific Management on Edge Devices
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23442