Case Study: University of Rwanda boosts maize disease detection with MathWorks

Fighting Crop Diseases with AI and Internet of Things IoT Sensors Help Boost Maize Production in Africa

The University of Rwanda faced a significant challenge in combatting maize crop diseases, which were causing substantial yield losses for farmers who relied on slow, costly, and often inaccessible manual inspection methods. To address this, researchers partnered with MathWorks, utilizing its ThingSpeak IoT platform to collect and monitor sensor data for an innovative early-detection system.

Using MathWorks technologies, the team developed machine learning models trained on IoT sensor data to identify diseases days before visual symptoms appeared. The solution, which achieved a 99.97% accuracy rate in testing, enables farmers to intervene sooner. This is expected to save half of the crops previously lost to disease, significantly boosting yield and providing a strong return on investment for farmers.

University of Rwanda

Theofrida Maginga

Ph.D. candidate