DEW-YOLO: An Efficient Algorithm for Steel Surface Defect Detection

To address the current steel surface defect detection algorithms in practical applications involving low detection accuracy, an efficient and highly accurate strip steel surface defect detection algorithm, DEW-YOLO, is proposed in this paper. Firstly, by combining the advantages of deformable convolutional networks (DCNs), this paper innovates the C2F module in YOLOv8 and proposes a C2fDCN module that can flexibly sample features to enhance the abilities of learning and expressing defect features of different sizes and shapes. Secondly, the explicit visual center (EVC) is introduced into the backbone network, which enhances feature extraction capabilities and adaptability and enables the model to better adjust features at different levels and scales. Finally, the original loss function is replaced with the Wise-IoU (WIoU) loss function to accurately measure the similarity between the target frames and improve the defect detection performance of the model. The experimental results on the NEU-DET dataset demonstrate that the algorithms proposed in this paper achieved a mean average precision (mAP) of 80. 3% in steel surface defect detection tasks, which was a 3. 9% improvement over the original YOLOv8 model. The model’s inference speed reached 91 frames per second (FPS). DEW-YOLO effectively enhances the accuracy of steel defect detection and better satisfies industrial inspection requirements.