Mobile-YOLO-SDD: A Lightweight YOLO for Real-time Steel Defect Detection

Defect detection is essential in the steel production process. Recent years have seen significant advancements in steel surface defect detection based on deep learning methods, notably exemplified by the YOLO series models capable of precise and rapid detection. However, challenges arise due to the high complexity of surface textures on steel and the low recognition rates for minor defects, making real-time and accurate detection difficult. This study introduces Mobile-YOLO-SDD (Steel Defect Detection), a lightweight YOLO-based model designed with high accuracy for real-time steel defect detection. Firstly, based on the effective YOLOv5 algorithm for steel defect detection, the backbone network is replaced with MobileNetV2 to reduce the model size and computational complexity. Then, the ECA (Efficient Channel Attention) module was integrated into the C3 module to reduce the number of parameters further while maintaining the defect detection rate in complex backgrounds. Finally, the K-Means++ algorithm regenerates anchor boxes and determines optimal sizes, enhancing their adaptability to actual targets. Experimental results on NEU-DET data demonstrate that the improved algorithm achieves a 60.6% reduction in model size, a 60.8% reduction in FLOPs, and a 1.8% improvement in mAP compared to YOLOv5s. These results confirm the effectiveness of Mobile-YOLO-SDD and lay the foundation for subsequent lightweight deployment of steel defect detection models.