Researchers combine machine vision and segmentation techniques into a tool to monitor urban plant health at the individual leaf level.
Monitoring urban plant health traditionally requires extensive manual labor and botanical expertise, creating challenges for cities facing expanding green spaces, higher population densities, and increasing threats to plants. Now, researchers from Japan have developed ‘Plant Doctor,’ an artificial intelligence-based tool that could revolutionize plant health monitoring. The proposed system can track individual leaves in urban video footage and precisely quantify the damage from pests and diseases, enabling scalable, non-invasive urban plant management.
Urban trees and plants do more than just beautify city landscapes. They purify the air, reduce urban heat islands, provide recreational spaces, and even boost property values. As essential components of sustainable urban ecosystems, plants silently contribute to our well-being. However, urban trees face many threats, including pests, diseases, and climate change, making it essential to keep their health in check.
Urban greenery monitoring has traditionally been a very labor-intensive process, requiring botanical expertise and considerable resources. With cities expanding worldwide and urban environments becoming more complex, keeping track of plant health has also become more difficult. Could artificial intelligence (AI) hold the key to addressing this challenge?
Read more at Waseda University
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