AI-Based UAV Swarms for Monitoring and Disease Identification of Brassica Plants Using Machine Learning: A Review

Abstract

Technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) pursued by artificial intelligence (AI) are improving remote sensing applications in smart agriculture. These are valuable tools for monitoring and disease identification of plants as they can collect data with no damage and effects on plants. However, their limited carrying and battery capacities restrict their performance in larger areas. Therefore, using multiple UAVs, especially in the form of a swarm is more significant for monitoring larger areas such as crop fields and forests. The diversity of research studies necessitates a literature review for more progress and contribution in the agricultural field. In this review, the comparative analysis of existing literature surveys is explored. This paper aims to provide an overview of AIbased UAV swarms, different cameras and sensors, image processing, and machine learning (ML) algorithms for image analysis having the purpose of monitoring and disease identification. Brassica plants are focused as they are grown on wider scales globally. Brassica species, the commonly infected diseases, and different types of disease detection methods are discussed. Investigations show the significance of using UAV swarms for growth monitoring growth for yield estimation, health monitoring, water status monitoring and irrigation management, nutrition disorders monitoring, pest and disease detection, and pesticide and fertilizer spraying in Brassica plants. Finally, some challenges of swarm-based applications are also addressed that require future consideration. The significance of this paper is that it suggests its readers embrace swarm-based technologies in the pursuit of more efficient production with relevant economic benefits. KEYWORDSArtificial intelligence (AI); Brassica; disease identification; image analysis; image processing; machine learning (ML); monitoring; swarm; remote sensors; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) UAV Swarm Brassica Plants ML Approaches Research FocusFigure 1: Review framework with the research focusWe searched articles in different databases, such as Science Direct, Google Scholar, SpringerLink, SAGE Journals, IEEE Xplore, and Wiley Online Library Journal. In the advanced search section of these database repositories, the period from 2018 to 2023 was selected. While plotting the framework we ensured to include all the important studies. After selecting the first batch of research papers, their related articles were also searched. To extract relevant articles, we read the abstract of all the retrieved articles. The screening criteria include deleting non-English and duplicate papers. We included the papers which were focused on optical sensors and machine learning approaches. We excluded the papers which were focused on other remote sensing tools and sensors. This review is proposed for farmers and researchers who are inclined to study Brassica plants and UAV swarms. The major contributions of the paper include: