# Resource-Constrained UAV-Based Weed Detection for Site-Specific Management on Edge Devices

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23442 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23442/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [YOLOv4: Optimal Speed and Accuracy of Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.10934/) (2020)
- [ShuffleNet V2: Practical Guidelines for Efficient CNN Architecture Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.11164/) (2018)
- [DETRs Beat YOLOs on Real-time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08069/) (2023)
- [YOLOv10: Real-Time End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14458/) (2024)
- [YOLOv9: Learning What You Want to Learn Using Programmable Gradient Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13616/) (2024)
- [Bottleneck Transformers for Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.11605/) (2021)
- [YOLOv12: Attention-Centric Real-Time Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12524/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Review of YOLO Architectures in Computer Vision: From YOLOv1 to YOLOv8 and YOLO-NAS](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.00501/) (2023)
- [RT-DETRv2: Improved Baseline with Bag-of-Freebies for Real-Time Detection Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17140/) (2024)
- [YOLOv13: Real-Time Object Detection with Hypergraph-Enhanced Adaptive Visual Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17733/) (2025)
- [RT-DETRv3: Real-time End-to-End Object Detection with Hierarchical Dense Positive Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08475/) (2024)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks with Sequential Information for Robust Crop and Weed Detection in Precision Farming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.03412/) (2018)
- [Comparative Analysis of YOLOv9, YOLOv10 and RT-DETR for Real-Time Weed Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13490/) (2024)
- [Assessing the Capability of YOLO- and Transformer-based Object Detectors for Real-time Weed Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.17387/) (2025)
- [Performance Evaluation of Semi-supervised Learning Frameworks for Multi-Class Weed Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03390/) (2024)
- [SPARROW: Smart Precision Agriculture Robot for Ridding of Weeds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.20896/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Evaluation of YOLO-based Deer Detection Performance on Edge Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20318/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [WeedExpert-R1: Incentivizing Botanical Reasoning in MLLMs with Reinforcement Learning for Precision Weed Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16492/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Weeds compete with crops for light, water, and nutrients, reducing yield and crop quality. Efficient weed detection is essential for site-specific weed management (SSWM). Although deep learning models have been deployed on UAV-based edge systems, a systematic understanding of how different model architectures perform under real-world resource constraints is still lacking. To address this gap, this study proposes a deployment-oriented framework for real-time UAV-based weed detection on resource-constrained edge platforms. The framework integrates UAV data acquisition, model development, and on-device inference, with a focus on balancing detection accuracy and computational efficiency. A diverse set of state-of-the-art object detection models is evaluated, including convolution-based YOLO models (v8-v12) and transformer-based RT-DETR models (v1-v2). Experiments on three edge devices (Jetson Orin Nano, Jetson AGX Xavier, and Jetson AGX Orin) demonstrate clear trade-offs between accuracy and inference latency across models and hardware configurations. Results show that high-capacity models achieve up to 86.9% mAP50 but suffer from high latency, limiting real-time deployment. In contrast, lightweight models achieve 66%-71% mAP50 with significantly lower latency, enabling real-time performance. Among all models, RT-DETRv2-R50-M achieves competitive accuracy (79% mAP50) with improved efficiency, while YOLOv10n provides the fastest inference speed. YOLOv11s and RT-DETRv2-R50-M offer the best balance between accuracy and speed, making them strong candidates for real-time UAV deployment.