Development of an Algorithm for Detecting Real-Time Defects in Steel

Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence with steel manufacturing operations holds great potential for enhancing factory efficiency. Object detection algorithms, as a category within the field of artificial intelligence, have been widely adopted for steel defect detection purposes. However, mainstream object detection algorithms often exhibit a low detection accuracy and high false-negative rates when it comes to detecting small and subtle defects in steel materials. In order to enhance the production efficiency of steel factories, one approach could be the development of a novel object detection algorithm to improve the accuracy and speed of defect detection in these facilities. This paper proposes an improved algorithm based on the YOLOv5s-7.0 version, called YOLOv5s-7.0-FCC. YOLOv5s-7.0-FCC integrates the basic operator C3-Faster (C3F) into the C3 module. Its special T-shaped structure reduces the redundant calculation of channel features, increases the attention weight on the central content, and improves the algorithm’s computational speed and feature extraction capability. Furthermore, the spatial pyramid pooling-fast (SPPF) structure is replaced by the Content Augmentation Module (CAM), which enriches the image feature content with different convolution rates to simulate the way humans observe things, resulting in enhanced feature information transfer during the process. Lastly, the upsampling operator Content-Aware ReAssembly of Features (CARAFE) replaces the “nearest” method, transforming the receptive field size based on the difference in feature information. The three modules that act on feature information are distributed reasonably in YOLOv5s-7.0, reducing the loss of feature information during the convolution process. The results show that compared to the original YOLOv5 model, YOLOv5s-7.0-FCC increases the mean average precision (mAP) from 73.1% to 79.5%, achieving a 6.4% improvement. The detection speed also increased from 101.1 f/s to 109.4 f/s, an improvement of 8.3 f/s, further meeting the accuracy requirements for steel defect detection.