Geo-Information Driven Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for Precision Agriculture Technologies Using Neutrosophic Entropy-DEMATEL and Hybrid TOPSIS

Precision agriculture employs advanced technologies to enhance farm productivity and sustainability; however, selecting the most appropriate tools can be challenging for small and medium-sized farms. This study conducts a comparative analysis of ten key precision agriculture technologies (PATs): remote sensing, GPS, GIS, VRT, soil & crop sensors, DSS, UAVs/Drones, AI & ML-based precision farming, autonomous agricultural machinery, and IoT-based smart farming. The analysis employs a neutrosophic set-based multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework. Domain experts evaluated ten representative technologies using a structured questionnaire based on ten critical criteria, including spatial-temporal accuracy, data acquisition latency, scalability, robustness, interoperability, environmental resilience, economic feasibility, and agro-ecological impact. A hybrid MCDM methodology was employed, integrating neutrosophic entropy and DEMATEL to construct criterion weights. Furthermore, we utilized neutrosophic DEMATEL to identify inter-criterion causal relationships. Neutrosophic TOPSIS, enhanced by a newly proposed hybrid Cosine-Jaccard similarity measure, was introduced to rank the alternatives under conditions of uncertainty. The findings reveal that IoT-based smart farming solutions achieved the highest overall score, followed by remote sensing and decision-support system (DSS) platforms. At the same time, variable-rate technology and sensor networks received lower rankings. The findings underscore the appropriateness of particular PATs for small and medium-scale farming contexts and illustrate the effectiveness of neutrosophic MCDM in addressing ambiguity and indeterminacy. The comparative insights provide direction for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in prioritizing precision agriculture technologies and strategies to enhance sustainable practices in small and medium-scale farming.