Rapid detection of multi‐scale cotton pests based on lightweight GBW‐YOLOv5 model

Abstract BACKGROUND Pest infestation is one of the primary causes of decreased cotton yield and quality. Rapid and accurate identification of cotton pest categories is essential for producers to implement effective and expeditious control measures. Existing multi‐scale cotton pest detection technology still suffers from poor accuracy and rapidity of detection. This study proposed the pruned GBW‐YOLOv5 (Ghost‐BiFPN‐WIoU You Only Look Once version 5), a novel model for the rapid detection of cotton pests. RESULTS The detection performance of the pruned GBW‐YOLOv5 model for cotton pests was evaluated based on the self‐built cotton pest dataset. In comparison with the original YOLOv5 model, the pruned GBW‐YOLOv5 model demonstrated significant reductions in complexity, size, and parameters by 68.4%, 66.7%, and 68.2%, respectively. Remarkably, the mean average precision (mAP) decreased by a mere 3.8%. The pruned GBW‐YOLOv5 model outperformed other classic object detection models, achieving an outstanding detection speed of 114.9 FPS. CONCLUSION The methodology proposed by our research enabled rapid and accurate identification of cotton pests, laying a solid foundation for the implementation of precise pest control measures. The pruned GBW‐YOLOv5 model provided theoretical research and technical support for detecting cotton pests under field conditions. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry.