Article · Computers · June 11, 2026

From Detection Toward Decision Support: A Hierarchical Visual–Sensor Framework for Zamioculcas Monitoring in Indoor Environments

Raikhan Amanova, Baurzhan Belgibaev, Yersaiyn Mailybayev, Gulnur Kazbekova, Zhadyra Akanova, Galiya Mamankyzy

Abstract

This paper proposes a prototype-level hierarchical visual–sensor framework for monitoring the Zamioculcas houseplant in complex indoor environments and supporting adaptive care-mode selection. The proposed framework combines a two-level visual pipeline, consisting of YOLO-based target plant detection and MobileViT-S-based leaf-condition classification, with a Plant Health Index (PHI) and a rule-based decision-support module for integrating visual and IoT-derived indicators. For the detection task, YOLOv8, YOLO12, and YOLO26 were compared, with YOLO26 showing the most balanced performance among the evaluated implementations. To improve robustness in real indoor scenes, negative training samples were added; this reduced the image-level false alarm rate on an independent negative-scene test set from 50.7% to 10.0% and increased specificity from 49.3% to 90.0%. For the second visual level, MobileViT-S achieved an accuracy of 0.9857 and an F1-score of 0.9857 on the independent cropped leaf test subset. To reduce the dependence of this result on a single data split, an additional 5-fold cross-validation experiment was conducted on the full cropped leaf dataset of 847 images, resulting in an accuracy of 0.9858 ± 0.0068 and an F1-score of 0.9853 ± 0.0070. To further address plant-level generalization, an additional unseen-plant validation subset of 60 newly collected cropped leaf images was evaluated, and MobileViT-S achieved an accuracy of 0.9500 and an F1-score of 0.9499. These results support the stability of the leaf-condition classifier within the available data, although larger external validation with strict plant-level and session-level separation remains necessary. In addition, an Arduino-based module-level validation was conducted using a capacitive soil-moisture sensor to verify the proposed sensor-based and Vision–IoT decision rules. The experiment demonstrated that the rule-based layer can distinguish dry, normal, and wet soil states and select conservative care actions depending on both soil moisture and visual-condition input. A brief real-time camera–sensor communication test further confirmed that live camera input, Arduino-based soil-moisture sensing, PHI computation, and care-mode selection can be connected within one decision-support pipeline. The proposed PHI and care-mode selection module are therefore presented as a formalized decision-support layer rather than as a fully validated autonomous irrigation system. Further calibration, actuator integration, and closed-loop validation remain necessary before practical autonomous deployment.

Smart Agriculture and AIAdvanced Neural Network ApplicationsLeaf Properties and Growth Measurementplant detectionYOLO26rule-based decision support

From Detection Toward Decision Support: A Hierarchical Visual–Sensor Framework for Zamioculcas Monitoring in Indoor Environments

Abstract

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