Intelligent Detection and Classification of Surface Defects on Cold-Rolled Galvanized Steel Strips Using a Data-Driven Faulty Model With Attention Mechanism

In the production of cold-rolled galvanized steel strips used for stamping car body parts, the in-situ and real-time defect detection is crucial for quality control, in which various types of defects inevitably occur. It is challenging to improve the accuracy of defect detection and classification by appropriate means to assist the manual screening process better. Defects under actual production conditions are often not prominent enough in defect characteristics, and there may be a significant similarity between different defect categories. To eliminate this weakness, we propose a data-driven deep learning approach named steel surface faulty detection attention net (SSFDANet) that uses images of the galvanized steel surfaces as input to identify whether the product is qualified and automatic classification of defect types instantaneously. This method can shorten product inspection time and improve the production line automation efficiency. In addition, the attention mechanism is utilized to enhance the performance of SSFDANet. Compared with the baseline ResNet, SSFDANet achieves a noticeable improvement in classification accuracy on test data. The well-trained model can successfully show an improved performance than the baseline models on the multiple types of faulty. Enhanced by SSFDANet with high classification accuracy, the defect rate of products is significantly reduced, and the production speed of the production line is significantly improved. Future prospective studies that are inspired by this article are also discussed.