Research Publications Authored by SLIIT Staff
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://rda.sliit.lk/handle/123456789/4195
This collection includes all SLIIT staff publications presented at external conferences and published in external journals. The materials are organized by faculty to facilitate easy retrieval.
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Publication Open Access Efficient Hotspot Detection in Solar Panels via Computer Vision and Machine Learning(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), 2025-07-15) Fernando, N; Seneviratne, L; Weerasinghe, N; Rathnayake, N; Hoshino, YSolar power generation is rapidly emerging within renewable energy due to its cost-effectiveness and ease of deployment. However, improper inspection and maintenance lead to significant damage from unnoticed solar hotspots. Even with inspections, factors like shadows, dust, and shading cause localized heat, mimicking hotspot behavior. This study emphasizes interpretability and efficiency, identifying key predictive features through feature-level and What-if Analysis. It evaluates model training and inference times to assess effectiveness in resource-limited environments, aiming to balance accuracy, generalization, and efficiency. Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-acquired thermal images from five datasets, the study compares five Machine Learning (ML) models and five Deep Learning (DL) models. Explainable AI (XAI) techniques guide the analysis, with a particular focus on MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group)-7 features for hotspot discrimination, supported by statistical validation. Medium Gaussian SVM achieved the best trade-off, with 99.3% accuracy and 18 s inference time. Feature analysis revealed blue chrominance as a strong early indicator of hotspot detection. Statistical validation across datasets confirmed the discriminative strength of MPEG-7 features. This study revisits the assumption that DL models are inherently superior, presenting an interpretable alternative for hotspot detection; highlighting the potential impact of domain mismatch. Model-level insight shows that both absolute and relative temperature variations are important in solar panel inspections. The relative decrease in “blueness” provides a crucial early indication of faults, especially in low-contrast thermal images where distinguishing normal warm areas from actual hotspot is difficult. Feature-level insight highlights how subtle changes in color composition, particularly reductions in blue components, serve as early indicators of developing anomalies.Publication Open Access Optical Coherence Imaging Hybridized Deep Learning Framework for Automated Plant Bud Classification in Emasculation Processes: A Pilot Study(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), 2025-09-25) Tharaka, D; Withanage, A; Kahatapitiya, N. S; Abhayapala, R; Wijenayake, U; Wijethunge, A; Ravichandran, N. K; Silva, B. N; Jeon, M; Kim, JA vision-based autonomous system for emasculating okra enhances agriculture by enabling precise flower bud identification, overcoming the labor-intensive, error-prone challenges of traditional manual methods with improved accuracy and efficiency. This study presents a framework for an adaptive, automated bud identification method to assist the emasculation process, hybridized optical coherence tomography (OCT). Three YOLOv8 variants were evaluated for accuracy, detection speed, and frame rate to identify the most efficient model. To strengthen the findings, YOLO was hybridized with OCT, enabling non-invasive sub-surface verification and precise quantification of the emasculated depth of both sepal and petal layers of the flower bud. To establish a solid benchmark, gold standard color histograms and a digital imaging-based method under optimal lighting conditions with confidence scoring were also employed. The results demonstrated that the proposed method significantly outperformed these conventional frameworks, providing superior accuracy and layer differentiation during emasculation. Hence, the developed YOLOv8 hybridized OCT method for flower bud identification and emasculation offers a powerful tool to significantly improve both the precision and efficiency of crop breeding practices. This framework sets the stage for implementing scalable, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven strategies that can modernize and optimize traditional crop breeding workflows.
