6,885 research outputs found
Crop Yield Prediction Using Deep Neural Networks
Crop yield is a highly complex trait determined by multiple factors such as
genotype, environment, and their interactions. Accurate yield prediction
requires fundamental understanding of the functional relationship between yield
and these interactive factors, and to reveal such relationship requires both
comprehensive datasets and powerful algorithms. In the 2018 Syngenta Crop
Challenge, Syngenta released several large datasets that recorded the genotype
and yield performances of 2,267 maize hybrids planted in 2,247 locations
between 2008 and 2016 and asked participants to predict the yield performance
in 2017. As one of the winning teams, we designed a deep neural network (DNN)
approach that took advantage of state-of-the-art modeling and solution
techniques. Our model was found to have a superior prediction accuracy, with a
root-mean-square-error (RMSE) being 12% of the average yield and 50% of the
standard deviation for the validation dataset using predicted weather data.
With perfect weather data, the RMSE would be reduced to 11% of the average
yield and 46% of the standard deviation. We also performed feature selection
based on the trained DNN model, which successfully decreased the dimension of
the input space without significant drop in the prediction accuracy. Our
computational results suggested that this model significantly outperformed
other popular methods such as Lasso, shallow neural networks (SNN), and
regression tree (RT). The results also revealed that environmental factors had
a greater effect on the crop yield than genotype.Comment: 9 pages, Presented at 2018 INFORMS Conference on Business Analytics
and Operations Research (Baltimore, MD, USA). One of the winning solutions to
the 2018 Syngenta Crop Challeng
Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD) Partnership’s work in Latin America
The Climate Services for Resilient Development (CSRD)
Partnership is a private-public collaboration led by USAID,
which aims to increase resilience to climate change in
developing countries through the development and
dissemination of climate services. The partnership
began with initial projects in three countries: Colombia,
Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. The International Center for
Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) was the lead organization for
the Colombian CSRD efforts – which then expanded to
encompass work in the whole Latin American region
Artificial Neural Network Methodology for Modelling and Forecasting Maize Crop Yield
A particular type of “Artificial neural network (ANN)â€, viz. Multilayered feedforward artificial neural network (MLFANN) has been described. To train such a network, two types of learning algorithms, namely Gradient descent algorithm (GDA) and Conjugate gradient descent algorithm (CGDA), have been discussed. The methodology has been illustrated by considering maize crop yield data as response variable and total human labour, farm power, fertilizer consumption, and pesticide consumption as predictors. The data have been taken from a recently concluded National Agricultural Technology Project of Division of Agricultural Economics, I.A.R.I., New Delhi. To train the neural network, relevant computer programs have been written in MATLAB software package using Neural network toolbox. It has been found that a three-layered MLFANN with (11,16) units in the two hidden layers performs best in terms of having minimum mean square errors (MSE) for training, validation, and test sets. Superiority of this MLFANN over multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis has also been demonstrated for the maize data considered in the study. It is hoped that, in future, research workers would start applying not only MLFANN but also some of the other more advanced ANN models, like ‘Radial basis function neural network’, and ‘Generalized regression neural network’ in their studies.Crop Production/Industries,
PREDICTION OF CROP YIELDS ACROSS FOUR CLIMATE ZONES IN GERMANY: AN ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK APPROACH
This paper shows the ability of artificial neural network technology to be used for the approximation and prediction of crop yields at rural district and federal state scales in different climate zones based on reported daily weather data. The method may later be used to construct regional time series of agricultural output under climate change, based on the highly resolved output of the global circulation models and regional models. Three 30-year combined historical data sets of rural district yields (oats, spring barley and silage maize), daily temperatures (mean, maximum, dewpoint) and precipitation were constructed. They were used with artificial neural network technology to investigate, simulate and predict historical time series of crop yields in four climate zones of Germany. Final neural networks, trained with data sets of three climate zones and tested against an independent northern zone, have high predictive power (0.83global change, agriculture, artificial neural networks, yield prediction
A Review on the Application of Natural Computing in Environmental Informatics
Natural computing offers new opportunities to understand, model and analyze
the complexity of the physical and human-created environment. This paper
examines the application of natural computing in environmental informatics, by
investigating related work in this research field. Various nature-inspired
techniques are presented, which have been employed to solve different relevant
problems. Advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are discussed,
together with analysis of how natural computing is generally used in
environmental research.Comment: Proc. of EnviroInfo 201
Local Motion Planner for Autonomous Navigation in Vineyards with a RGB-D Camera-Based Algorithm and Deep Learning Synergy
With the advent of agriculture 3.0 and 4.0, researchers are increasingly
focusing on the development of innovative smart farming and precision
agriculture technologies by introducing automation and robotics into the
agricultural processes. Autonomous agricultural field machines have been
gaining significant attention from farmers and industries to reduce costs,
human workload, and required resources. Nevertheless, achieving sufficient
autonomous navigation capabilities requires the simultaneous cooperation of
different processes; localization, mapping, and path planning are just some of
the steps that aim at providing to the machine the right set of skills to
operate in semi-structured and unstructured environments. In this context, this
study presents a low-cost local motion planner for autonomous navigation in
vineyards based only on an RGB-D camera, low range hardware, and a dual layer
control algorithm. The first algorithm exploits the disparity map and its depth
representation to generate a proportional control for the robotic platform.
Concurrently, a second back-up algorithm, based on representations learning and
resilient to illumination variations, can take control of the machine in case
of a momentaneous failure of the first block. Moreover, due to the double
nature of the system, after initial training of the deep learning model with an
initial dataset, the strict synergy between the two algorithms opens the
possibility of exploiting new automatically labeled data, coming from the
field, to extend the existing model knowledge. The machine learning algorithm
has been trained and tested, using transfer learning, with acquired images
during different field surveys in the North region of Italy and then optimized
for on-device inference with model pruning and quantization. Finally, the
overall system has been validated with a customized robot platform in the
relevant environment
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