A systematic review of deep learning approaches for surface defect detection in industrial applications

Detecting surface defects plays a crucial role in ensuring the quality, functionality, and security of the production process. Traditional image processing techniques and machine learning models rely on manual analysis and feature extraction for specific vision inspection tasks. Deep learning approaches, which can automatically extract features from images, have demonstrated outstanding performance in computer vision tasks, including detecting surface defects. Motivated by this consideration, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method is employed for the comprehensive analysis of studies published between 2020 and 2023 in the field of deep learning-based surface defect detection applications in industrial products. The study provides a technical taxonomy for deep learning models according to the content of current studies through the SLR process, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), encoder–decoder models, pyramid network models, Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), attention-based models, and other models for surface defect detection. Then, the commonly used datasets for surface defect detection are discussed, and a comparative analysis of deep learning models’ performance is provided. Our comparative analysis reveals that pyramid network models and CNN models are the most frequently used deep learning models for surface defect detection. These models yield reasonable results in surface defect detection due to their exceptional feature extraction capabilities. Finally, some hints for addressing future research directions and identifying open issues in surface defect detection applications are presented.