DeepGreen: a real-time deep learning system for smart agriculture monitoring

Plant diseases are a major problem for farmers around the world, reducing crop yields. The absence of expertise makes plant disease detection difficult and complicated. Plant disease detection is made easier by deep learning algorithms; however, they are computationally demanding and need huge training datasets. This research work proposes a novel Conv-7 DCNN model with modified ParNet attention layer to classify plant leaves into distinct categories with improved accuracy. Because of its architecture, the proposed network can identify leaf diseases with more accuracy by extracting the wider range of features from the images. The proposed Conv-7 DCNN model classifies the leaf diseases of three plants such as tomato, potato, and pepper-bell into fifteen categories. The CNN model is trained using publicly accessible Kaggle dataset, utilising image augmentation techniques. It is evident from the simulation results that the proposed model outperforms several pre-trained, and other trending deep learning models. Proposed model achieves 99.18% classification accuracy with an average precision of 99.17% and area under the curve (AUC) of 1, making this model highly effective in leaf diseases detection. Additionally, Conv-7 DCNN achieved high FPS of 112.49, low inference time of 18.34 s, and low GFLOPS of 13.98, making it suitable for real-time applications in smart agriculture systems.