Fuzzy deep learning architecture for cucumber plant disease detection and classification

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel fuzzy deep convolutional neural network architecture for cucumber plant disease detection, contributing to precision farming in Industry 5.0. The proposed architecture incorporates 40 convolutional layers, 4 pooling layers, 4 inverted bottleneck blocks, 4 bottleneck blocks, 5 fuzzy layers, and a fully connected layer designed to enhance accuracy and stability when analyzing remotely sensed data. The fuzzy optimistic formula is used for activation in four blocks, enabling effective information fusion. At the same time, the ReLU transfer function ensures robustness, mainly when dealing with noisy or incomplete image segments. Feature vector optimization is performed using a chaotic particle swarm algorithm, enhancing the model’s overall accuracy, reliability, and ease of implementation. The architecture achieves 98% classification accuracy, outperforming leading models like VGG-19, DarkNet-19, and ResNet-50. Moreover, the computational time per run (40–90 s) is significantly lower than these models, which use higher learnable parameters (5.7 million). The proposed approach is efficient and feasible, offering a more stable and accurate disease detection system while utilizing fewer resources. This work demonstrates the potential of AI-driven solutions in agriculture, particularly in improving disease detection and crop yield through advanced machine learning techniques.

Code and data availability

The paper's cucumber leaf disease image dataset is publicly available on Kaggle (base dataset), though the authors note two additional classes are only available upon request. No author analysis code, trained models, or other paper-specific assets are disclosed.