Pushing the Boundaries of Solar Panel Inspection: Elevated Defect Detection with YOLOv7-GX Technology

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During the maintenance and management of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, how to efficiently solve the maintenance difficulties becomes a key challenge that restricts their performance and service life. Aiming at the multi-defect-recognition challenge in PV-panel image analysis, this study innovatively proposes a new algorithm for the defect detection of PV panels incorporating YOLOv7-GX technology. The algorithm first constructs an innovative GhostSlimFPN network architecture by introducing GSConv and depth-wise separable convolution technologies, optimizing the traditional neck network structure. Then, a customized 1 × 1 convolutional module incorporating the GAM (Global Attention Mechanism) attention mechanism is designed in this paper to improve the ELAN structure, aiming to enhance the network’s perception and representation capabilities while controlling the network complexity. In addition, the XIOU loss function is introduced in the study to replace the traditional CIOU loss function, which effectively improves the robustness and convergence efficiency of the model. In the training stage, the sample imbalance problem is effectively solved by implementing differentiated weight allocations for different images and categories, which promotes the balance of the training process. The experimental data show that the optimized model achieves 94.8% in the highest mAP value, which is 6.4% higher than the original YOLOv7 network, significantly better than other existing models, and provides solid theoretical and technical support for further research and application in the field of PV-panel defect detection.