Heesup Yun

Education

University of California, Davis, CA, USA 09/2021 – 06/2026

Ph.D., Biological and Agricultural Engineering

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 03/2015 – 02/2017

Master of Science, Biosystems Engineering

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 03/2011 – 02/2015

Bachelor of Science, Biosystems Engineering / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Research Experience

University of California, Davis, CA, USA 08/2026 – Present

Postdoctoral Researcher, Plant AI and Biophysics Lab

Focus: agricultural AI, plant phenotyping, thermal—RGB sensor fusion, automated plant modeling

University of California, Davis, CA, USA 09/2021 – 06/2026

Graduate Research Assistant, Plant AI and Biophysics Lab

Focus: agricultural AI, plant phenotyping, thermal—RGB sensor fusion, automated plant modeling

G×E×M Innovation in Intelligence for Climate Adaptation Website

iOS app for a low-cost image data collection
4 years of field data collection using drones and rovers
Web-app based data processing and analysis software for breeding researchers
Web-app based leaf angle measurement using smartphone's IMU
Low-cost weather station for plot scale microclimate measurement
Thermal image super resolution and RGB sensor fusion
Automated plant modeling using vision language models

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 03/2015 – 02/2017

Graduate Student Researcher, Biosystems Control and Precision Agriculture Lab.

UAV-based remote sensing for growth monitoring of major upland crops

A three-year iPET-funded project
UAV remote sensing based growth monitoring of white radish and Chinese cabbage
Multi-temporal NDVI analysis for crop growth assessment
3D digital surface model based plant volume and biomass estimation

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea 07/2012 – 02/2015

Undergraduate Researcher

Biosystems Control & Precision Agriculture Lab — UAV remote sensing for hairy vetch biomass estimation

UAV and RGB camera based remote sensing for hairy vetch cover crop
Excess green (ExG) vegetation index monitoring from UAV RGB imagery
Estimated cover crop volume and biomass

Off-Road Equipment & Soil-Machine Systems Design Lab — Load-sensitive engine throttle control for fuel efficiency

Tractor RPM filtering using Kalman filter
Matlab/Simulink simulation model for tractor fuel consumption efficiency
Programming C code for ISO 11783/ISOBUS on ATmega microcontroller

Publications

Uyehara, I. K., Yun, H., Rizzo, K. T., Ranario, E., & Earles, M. (2026). AgRowStitch: A Leaf-Scale Image Stitching Pipeline for Ground-Based Agricultural Images. Applied Engineering in Agriculture, 42(3), 307-317.
Yun, H., Uyehara, I. K., Droutsas, I., Ranario, E., Diepenbrock, C. H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2026). A vision language model for generating XML-based organ-level plant architecture representations of cowpea from simulated images. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 9, 1844338. Link
Ranario, E., Mayanja, I., Yun, H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2026). Thermal Image Segmentation in Weedy Fields via Synthetic RGB-Trained Models and GAN-Based Cross-Modality Alignment. Plant Phenomics, 100214. Link
Lundqvist, L., Ranario, E., Kamangir, H., Yun, H., Diepenbrock, C. H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2026). Does Your VFM Speak Plant? The Botanical Grammar of Vision Foundation Models for Object Detection. arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.09920. Link
Yun, H., Uyehara, I. K., Ranario, E., Lundqvist, L., Diepenbrock, C. H., & Bailey, B. N. (2026). Using Vision Language Foundation Models to Generate Plant Simulation Configurations via In-Context Learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.08930. (Submitted) Link
Mayanja, I. K., Yun, H., & Bailey, B. N. (2026). Automated calibration of stomatal conductance models from thermal imagery by leveraging synthetic images generated from Helios 3D biophysical model simulations. Journal of Experimental Botany, 77(2), 312–329. Link
Jeon, Y.-J., Kim, H. S., Lee, T. S., Park, S. H., Yun, H., & Jung, D.-H. (2025). Multimodal Optical Biosensing and 3D-CNN Fusion for Phenotyping Physiological Responses of Basil Under Water Deficit Stress. Agronomy, 16(1), 55. Link
Ranario, E., Lundqvist, L., Yun, H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2025). AGILE: A Diffusion-Based Attention-Guided Image and Label Translation for Efficient Cross-Domain Plant Trait Identification. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 5392–5401). Link
Berlingeri, J., Fuentes, A., Ranario, E., Yun, H., Rim, E. Y., Garrett, O., Howard, A., et al. (2025). Integration of crop modeling and sensing into molecular breeding for nutritional quality and stress tolerance. Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 138(9), 205. Link
Ranario, E., Mayanja, I., Yun, H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2025). Enabling Plant Phenotyping in Weedy Environments using Multi-Modal Imagery via Synthetic and Generated Training Data. arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.19208. Link
Yun, H., Lo, S., Diepenbrock, C. H., Bailey, B. N., & Earles, J. M. (2024). VisTA-SR: Improving the Accuracy and Resolution of Low-Cost Thermal Imaging Cameras for Agriculture. In Proceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (pp. 5470–5479). Link
Kim, D.-W., Jeong, S. J., Lee, W. S., Yun, H., Chung, Y. S., Kwon, Y.-S., & Kim, H.-J. (2023). Growth monitoring of field-grown onion and garlic by CIE Lab* color space and region-based crop segmentation of UAV RGB images. Precision Agriculture, 24(5), 1982–2001. Link
Yun, H. S., Kim, H. J., Cho, W. C., Kim, H. S., & Lim, S. J. (2020). Development of an in situ Dead Leaf Weight Monitoring System. Precision Agriculture Science and Technology, 2(3), 181. (Korean) Link
Kim, D. W., Yun, H. S., Jeong, S. J., Kwon, Y. S., Kim, S. G., Lee, W. S., & Kim, H. J. (2018). Modeling and testing of growth status for Chinese cabbage and white radish with UAV-based RGB imagery. Remote Sensing, 10(4), 563. Link
Yun, H. S., Park, S. H., Kim, H. J., Lee, W. D., Lee, K. D., Hong, S. Y., & Jung, G. H. (2016). Use of unmanned aerial vehicle for multi-temporal monitoring of soybean vegetation fraction. Journal of Biosystems Engineering, 41(2), 126-137. Link Cover Article
Lee, K. D., Na, S. I., Baek, S. C., Park, K. D., Choi, J. S., Kim, S. J., Yun, H. S. & Hong, S. Y. (2015). Estimating the Amount of Nitrogen in Hairy Vetch on Paddy Fields using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Imagery. Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer, 48(5), 384-390. (Korean) Link

Presentations

Yun, H., Droutsas, I., Bailey, B. N., Diepenbrock, C., & Earles, M. (2024). Closing the Real2Sim Gap Between Real Images and Simulation Models of Cowpea. ASABE 2024 Annual International Meeting, Anaheim, CA.
Yun, H., & Earles, M. (2023). Improving Low-Cost Thermal Images for Estimating Traits of Cowpea and Common Beans. ASABE 2023 Annual International Meeting, Omaha, NE.
Mayanja, I.K., Yun, H., Earles, M., & Bailey, B.N. (2023). Automated parameterization of stomatal conductance models from thermal imagery by leveraging synthetic images generated from Helios 3D biophysical model simulations. North American Plant Phenotyping Network, West Lafayette, IN. Link
Kim, D., Jeong, S. J., Yun, H., Kwon, Y. S., & Kim, H. J. (2017). Validation Testing of UAV-based Vegetable Growth Estimation Models. In 2017 ASABE Annual International Meeting (p. 1). American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Link
Yun, H., Jung, S. J., & Kim, H. J. (2016). Radiometric Calibration and Vegetation Index Analysis of Upland-Crop UAV images. Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference, 21(1), 129-130. Link
Yun, H., Kim, H. J., Park, K., Lee, K., & Hong, S. (2015). Use of an UAV for biomass monitoring of hairy vetch. In 2015 ASABE Annual International Meeting (p. 1). American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. Link
Yun, H., Cho, W. J., Jiang, J. S., & Kim, H. J. (2015). Estimation of Leaf Area, Plant Height, and Fresh Weight of Lettuce in a Plant Factory using Structure from Motion (SfM) Technique. Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference, 20(2), 171-172.
Yun, H. S. , Kim, H. J., Do Lee, K., Hong, S. Y., & Do Park, K. (2015). Monitoring Hairy Vetch Growth using UAV Images. Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference, 20(1), 73-74.
Park, S. H., Yun, H. S., Kim, H. J., Do Lee, K., Hong, S. Y., & Jung, G. H. (2014). Multi-temporal Visualizing of Soybean Crop Canopy using Images from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference, 19(2), 223-223.

Teaching Experience

University of California, Davis Fall 2025

Teaching Assistant EBS 165: Bioinstrumentation & Control

University of California, Davis Winter 2025

Guest Lecturer PLS154 Plant Breeding

AI-enabled tools in plant breeding: leaf temperature and angle measurement in a greenhouse (01/30/2025)

Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea Fall 2015

Teaching Assistant 5261.222 Dynamics

Patents

Kim, H. J., Yun, H. S., Kim, H. S., Park, J. H., Lim, S. J. Forest Fire Alarm System based On-site Measurement of Fallen Leaf Water Content, Korean Patent 10-1938973-0000 (2019)

Work Experience

A.I.MATICS Inc., Seoul, Korea 02/2017 – 08/2021

Software Engineer, Division of AI Edge Solution

A leading automotive AI and vehicle telematics development company in Korea Website

Focus: computer vision, deep learning, embedded AI, ADAS for automotive applications

Driver action monitoring system for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS)

Driver body keypoint detection using MobileNetV3 backbone and heatmap estimation
RCNN based object detection with IR dashcam images
Driver attention classification using RNN
Launched advanced driver monitoring system in May 2020

Driver status monitoring system for ADAS

OpenFace keypoint detection with IR dashcam images
CNN based eye status classification
Face tracking using Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi (KLT) feature tracker
Showcased at CES 2019 and National Association of Fleet Administrators

Motorcyclist and vehicle detection using aggregate channel features for ADAS

Motorcyclist detection using feature extraction and random forest
Low level code optimization for ARM NEON processors

Vehicle detection using histogram of gradients for ADAS

HW accelerated feature extraction pipeline for Blackfin DSP
Histogram of gradient and SVM classifier based vehicle detection

Honors & Awards

2026 Teaching Assistant Excellence Award, UC Davis College of Engineering 06/2026

$300, 6th AKABFE Research Spotlight Presentation Highlights 07/2024

$5,000, Farm Robotics Challenge, Elegance in Design Prize 06/2023

Graduate Research Assistantship (Full Tuition & Stipend), UC Davis 09/2021 – 06/2026

Tuition, SNU Agricultural Engineering Aid Foundation 03/2014 – 02/2017

Tuition, National Science & Technology Fellowship 03/2011 – 02/2014

Travel award, 11th SNU CALS Global Challenger 06/2013 – 07/2013