Hybrid segmentation - Artificial Neural Network classification of high resolution hyperspectral imagery for Site-Specific Herbicide Management in agriculture

Site-Specific Herbicide Management (SSHM) in Precision Agriculture (PA) requires weed detection in crop fields for directed herbicide application instead of spraying entire fields. This has significant economic and environmental advantages for improved agricultural practices that are essential given forecast increases in global population and food production needs. In this study, a new hybrid segmentation - Artificial Neural Network (HS-ANN) method was compared to standard Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) for improving crop/weed species discrimination in SSHM/PA. Very high spatial resolution (1.25 mm) ground-based hyperspectral image data were acquired over field plots of canola, pea, and wheat crops seeded with two weed species (redroot pigweed, wild oat) in southern Alberta, Canada. The very high spatial and spectral resolution image data required development of a simple yet efficient vegetation index (Modified Chlorophyll Absorption in Reflectance Index (MCARI)) threshold segmentation to separate vegetation from soil for classification. The HS-ANN consistently outperformed MLC in both single date and multi-temporal classifications. Higher class accuracies were obtained with multi-temporally trained ANNS (84 to 92 percent overall), with improvements up to 31 percent over MLC. With advancements in imaging technology and computer processing speed, this HS-ANN method may constitute a viable farm option for real-time detection and mapping of weed species for SSHM in agriculture.