IHDS: Intelligent Harvesting Decision System for Date Fruit Based on Maturity Stage Using Deep Learning and Computer Vision

Date is the main fruit crop of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), approximately covering 72% of the total area under permanent crops. The Food and Agriculture Organization states that date production worldwide was 3,430,883 tons in 1990, which increases yearly, reaching 8,526,218 tons in 2018. Date production in KSA was around 527,881 tons in 1990, approximately reaching 1,302,859 tons in 2018. Harvesting date fruits at an appropriate time according to a specific maturity stage or level is a critical decision that significantly affects profit. In the present study, we proposed an intelligent harvesting decision system (IHDS) based on date fruit maturity level. The proposed decision system used computer vision and deep learning (DL) techniques to detect seven different maturity stages/levels of date fruit (Immature stage 1, Immature stage 2, Pre-Khalal, Khalal, Khalal with Rutab, Pre-Tamar, and Tamar). In the IHDS, we developed six different DL systems, and each one produced different accuracy levels in terms of the seven aforementioned maturity stages. The IHDS used datasets that have been collected by the Center of Smart Robotics Research. The maximum performance metrics of the proposed IHDS were 99.4%, 99.4%, 99.7%, and 99.7% for accuracy, F1 score, sensitivity (recall), and precision, respectively.