Edge computing-based computer vision and deep transfer learning for high-throughput assessment of Aspergillus flavus infection in crop seeds

Manual assessment of toxic fungal infection levels in crop seeds is important for developing antifungal-resistant cultivars, yet it has long been recognized as health-risking and inherently subjective. This study presents an edge computing-based computer vision approach for high-throughput on-site assessment and quantification of Aspergillus flavus infection in crop seeds. The edge computing-based computer vision approach, termed Edge CV, was developed using the Jetson Nano, embedded cameras, and deployed with the proposed Edge CV model to enable intelligent evaluation with constrained computing resources and GPU power. The Edge CV model: First, leveraging semantic segmentation in computer vision tasks to differentiate between A. flavus-infected and uninfected; Second, utilizing post-processing techniques to accurately separate connected peanut seeds while merging segments belonging to the same ones; Third, analyzing and quantifying infection indices, as well as results presentation. Finally, deep transfer learning was employed to validate the model's transferability for other crop seeds. As a result, Edge CV inference showed agreement with manual measurements (R² = 0.901, RMSE = 0.07) and superior consistency, with only a 0.01 % fluctuation compared to 4.2 % for human assessments. Moreover, Edge CV demonstrated its transferability to other crop seeds, such as maize (R² = 0.968, RMSE = 0.13) and rice (R² = 0.949, RMSE = 0.26). These results underscore the potential of Edge CV as a transferable solution for assessing toxic fungal infections. The approach developed also offers valuable insights for enhancing proximal machine vision, improving the distinction of adjacent seeds, and enabling more accurate calculation of the infection index.