From Detection to Action: Smart Technologies for Precision Weed Management

Abstract

Precision weed management is evolving from uniform herbicide application toward intelligent, site-specific crop protection. This review examines recent advances in smart spraying technologies, focusing on target information acquisition, feature extraction, data mining, deep learning, prescription mapping, autonomous vehicle control, and precise spray delivery. Optical, thermal, multispectral, hyperspectral and acoustic sensing enable detection and characterization of weeds and other crop-protection targets, while machine learning and deep learning support automated recognition and spatial decision-making. Intelligent Pesticide Prescription Spraying integrates these technologies with variable-rate and targeted spraying, supported by GNSS-based navigation and intelligent spray-control systems, while non-chemical approaches such as robotic, mechanical and laser weeding offer complementary, chemical-free control. Emerging droplet-control technologies further improve deposition while reducing drift and off-target losses. Despite substantial progress, high costs, limited annotated datasets, environmental variability and field-scale validation remain barriers to widespread commercial adoption.