Improving RGB image recognition in the YOLO11n algorithm for accurate detection of tea plant diseases

Jinxian TAO; Xiaoli LI; Jingfei ZHANG; Muhammad SHOAIB; Muhammad Adnan ISLAM; Ibrar AHMAD; Yong HE; Sitan YE; Yujie WANG; Binhui LIAO; Mostafa GOUDA

doi:10.1631/jzus.B2500693

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Research Article | Updated：2026-05-15

Improving RGB image recognition in the YOLO11n algorithm for accurate detection of tea plant diseases
Improving RGB image recognition in the YOLO11n algorithm for accurate detection of tea plant diseases
在YOLO11n算法中改进RGB图像识别以实现对茶树病害的精确检测
Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B Vol. 27, Issue 5, Pages: 482-498(2026)
Affiliations：

1.College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
2.Department of Nutrition and Food Science, National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza 12622, Egypt
3.Liandu Agriculture and Rural Bureau, Lishui 323000, China
Funds：
DOI：10.1631/jzus.B2500693
CLC：
CSTR：
Received：30 October 2025，

Revised：2026-01-28，

Published：15 May 2026
Accepted：

陶晋贤,李晓丽,张敬斐等.在YOLO11n算法中改进RGB图像识别以实现对茶树病害的精确检测[J].浙江大学学报（英文版）（B辑：生物医学和生物技术）,2026,27(05):482-498.

Jinxian TAO, Xiaoli LI, Jingfei ZHANG, et al. Improving RGB image recognition in the YOLO11n algorithm for accurate detection of tea plant diseases[J]. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B, 2026, 27(5): 482-498.
陶晋贤,李晓丽,张敬斐等.在YOLO11n算法中改进RGB图像识别以实现对茶树病害的精确检测[J].浙江大学学报（英文版）（B辑：生物医学和生物技术）,2026,27(05):482-498. DOI： 10.1631/jzus.B2500693.

Jinxian TAO, Xiaoli LI, Jingfei ZHANG, et al. Improving RGB image recognition in the YOLO11n algorithm for accurate detection of tea plant diseases[J]. Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B, 2026, 27(5): 482-498. DOI： 10.1631/jzus.B2500693.

摘要

茶类病害（包括褐色疫病和灰色疫病）会显著降低茶叶的产量与品质，在龙井茶生产中尤为突出。传统检测方法易出现误检，而现有深度学习模型在自然田间条件下通常难以保证足够的鲁棒性。为了解决上述问题，本文提出并验证了一种改进的轻量级检测模型—融合非对称多级（AML）机制、动态蛇形卷积（DSC）与SIoU损失函数的YOLO模型（ADS-YOLO）。本研究在自然光照条件下，构建了包含5694张手机拍摄茶叶图像的数据集。以YOLO11n为基线模型，进行了以下主要改进：引入SIoU损失函数以提升边界框回归效果；采用DSC，基于动态空间上下文实现自适应特征提取；设计AML机制，通过自适应多尺度结构实现轻量化的特征融合。研究结果表明，ADS-YOLO的精确率为0.935，召回率为0.870，而基线模型YOLO11n的对应值分别为0.894和0.818。更重要的是，ADS-YOLO实现了137.1 FPS的实时检测性能，同时降低了计算复杂度。相较于YOLOv5n，ADS-YOLO的当交并比阈值为0.5时的平均精度均值（mAP@0.5）提升了6.4%；相较于YOLOv7t，精确率最高提升了44.6%。综上所述，ADS-YOLO实现了高精度检测，可为作物健康实时监测及茶叶生产的精准可持续发展提供可扩展性的解决方案。

Abstract

Tea diseases

including brown and gray blight

result in significant yield and quality losses

especially in Longjing tea production. Traditional detection methods are prone to errors

while existing deep learning models often struggle to be robust under natural field conditions. To address these challenges

an improved lightweight detection model

asymmetric multi-level (AML) mechanism

dynamic snake convolution (DSC)

and scalable intersection over union (SIoU) loss function-You Only Look Once (YOLO) (ADS-YOLO)

was developed and validated. In the method

a dataset comprising 5694 smartphone-captured images of tea leaves was established under natural lighting. Enhancements were implemented in the YOLO11n baseline algorithm through incorporation of the SIoU loss function for better bounding box regression

DSC

which realizes adaptive feature extraction based on the dynamic spatial context

and an AML mechanism

which achieves lightweight feature fusion via adaptive multi-scale design. The results showed that ADS-YOLO achieved a precision of 0.935 and a recall of 0.870

compared to 0.894 and 0.818

respectively

when the baseline YOLO11n was used. Importantly

ADS-YOLO demonstrated a real-time performance of 137.1 frames per second (FPS)

coupled with reduced computational costs. ADS-YOLO improved the mean average precision (mAP) at intersection over union threshold of 0.5 (mAP@0.5) by 6.4% compared with YOLOv5n and achieved up to 44.6% higher accuracy than YOLOv7t. In conclusion

ADS-YOLO achieved high accuracy

providing a scalable solution for real-time crop health monitoring and sustainable precision agriculture for tea production.

关键词

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references

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