A Hybrid CNN–Transformer Approach for Photovoltaic Cell Defect Classification Using Electroluminescence Imaging

This study addresses the automatic classification of cells in electroluminescent panel images to detect photovoltaic cell defects. The images used in the study were obtained from a solar panel production line. An original dataset consisting of 37,538 cell images with eight defect classes (Cell-Interconnection, Electrically Insulated Cell Parts, Finger Defect, Material, Microcrack, Multi-Defect, Normal, Visual) was prepared by applying RLSA-based automated cell segmentation enhanced with morphological processing to the photovoltaic panel images. A novel CNN–Transformer model with a self-attention mechanism, called PVELNet, is proposed for classifying defect types. Experimental studies were conducted with 16 deep learning models to compare the proposed model. F1-Score, Precision, Recall, and Accuracy evaluation metrics were used in the experimental study. Furthermore, the Confusion Matrix results obtained from the 16 deep learning models and the proposed PVELNet model are presented. The results were obtained using a relatively balanced dataset prepared for this study. PVELNet achieved 95.71% accuracy, outperforming other models. With 1.79 million parameters and a memory requirement of 46.1 MB, the PVELNet model is relatively lightweight. As a result, it demonstrates the potential to control processes on actual solar panel production lines.