One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network for Automated Kimchi Cabbage Downy Mildew Detection Using Aerial Hyperspectral Images

Downy mildew poses a significant threat to kimchi cabbage, a vital agricultural product in Korea, adversely affecting its yield and quality. Traditional disease detection methods based on visual inspection are labor intensive and time consuming. This study proposes a non-destructive, field-scale disease detection approach using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral imaging. Hyperspectral images of the kimchi cabbage field were preprocessed, segmented at the pixel level, and classified into four categories: background, healthy, early-stage disease, and late-stage disease. Spectral analysis of the late and early stages of downy mildew infection revealed notable differences in the red-edge band, with infected plants exhibiting increased red-edge reflectance. To automate disease detection, various machine learning models, including Random Forest (RF), 1D Convolutional Neural Network (1D-CNN), 1D Residual Network (1D-ResNet), and 1D Inception Network (1D-InceptionNet), were developed. These models were trained based on a 0.2 sampling dataset, achieving overall accuracy scores of 0.907, 0.901, 0.909, and 0.914, along with F1 scores of 0.876, 0.845, 0.897, and 0.899, respectively. Overall, the results of this study revealed that the red-edge band reliably signaled the presence of downy mildew, and the 1D-InceptionNet model demonstrated the most effective performance for automatic disease detection.