Machine Learning and Image Processing-Based System for Identifying Mushrooms Species in Malaysia

Malaysia, a country with a tropical climate characterized by consistent warmth and year-long high humidity, houses the perfect conditions for mushroom growth. Recently, there has been a surge in back-to-nature activities in Malaysia. However, many participants lack prior knowledge about the local flora and fungi, leading to a rise in mushroom poisoning cases, some of which have been fatal. Despite thorough research, there is a notable lack of identification studies specifically focused on mushroom species in Malaysia. Identifying these species is crucial for medical providers to effectively counteract the toxins from ingested mushrooms and also serves as an important educational tool. This study aims to determine the most suitable architecture for mushroom identification, focusing specifically on mushroom species found in Malaysia. A dataset of these mushrooms was curated, augmented, and processed through multiple variants of Vision Transformers (ViTs) and ResNet models, with uniform hyperparameters to ensure fairness. The results indicate that the ViT-L/16 model achieved the highest accuracy at 90.47%.