<![CDATA[Image-based classification of potato leaf diseases presents a significant challenge, particularly when data are collected in uncontrolled field environments. While Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Computer Vision have been widely used for plant disease identification, most previous studies relied on laboratory datasets with uniform lighting and backgrounds, limiting their real-world applicability. This study proposes an integrated framework that combines data augmentation, class balancing using the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE), and automated hyperparameter optimization through Optuna to enhance the robustness and accuracy of CNN-based models. A total of 3,076 high-resolution potato leaf images representing seven disease classes were evaluated across five CNN architectures and three training scenarios. The MobileNetV3-Large model achieved the best baseline performance with an accuracy of 0.863 and F1-score of 0.868, while Optuna-based optimization further improved performance to 0.895 accuracy, 0.913 precision, 0.906 recall, and 0.904 F1-score, demonstrating the effectiveness of adaptive optimization in improving model generalization. The integration of augmentation, SMOTE, and Optuna resulted in an intelligent and efficient system resilient to environmental variability, showing strong potential for automatic early detection of potato leaf diseases in real agricultural settings. This research contributes to the advancement of Informatics and Artificial Intelligence by promoting adaptive computer vision approaches for smart agriculture and real-world image-based diagnostic systems.]]>
