MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects
To address the challenges posed by complex backgrounds and the low occurrence in photovoltaic cell images captured by industrial sensors, we propose a novel defect detection method: MRA-YOLOv8. First, a multi-branch coordinate attention network (MBCANet) is introduced into the backbone. The coordina...
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MDPI AG
2025-03-01
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| author | Nannan Wang Siqi Huang Xiangpeng Liu Zhining Wang Yi Liu Zhe Gao |
| author_facet | Nannan Wang Siqi Huang Xiangpeng Liu Zhining Wang Yi Liu Zhe Gao |
| author_sort | Nannan Wang |
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| description | To address the challenges posed by complex backgrounds and the low occurrence in photovoltaic cell images captured by industrial sensors, we propose a novel defect detection method: MRA-YOLOv8. First, a multi-branch coordinate attention network (MBCANet) is introduced into the backbone. The coordinate attention network (CANet) is incorporated to mitigate the noise impact of background information on the detection task, and multiple branches are employed to enhance the model’s feature extraction capability. Second, we integrate a multi-path feature extraction module, ResBlock, into the neck. This module provides finer-grained multi-scale features, improving feature extraction from complex backgrounds and enhancing the model’s robustness. Finally, we implement alpha-minimum point distance-based IoU (AMPDIoU) to the head. This loss function enhances the accuracy and robustness of small object detection by integrating minimum point distance-based IoU (MPDIoU) and Alpha-IoU methods. The results demonstrate that MRA-YOLOv8 outperforms other mainstream methods in detection performance. On the photovoltaic electroluminescence anomaly detection (PVEL-AD) dataset, the proposed method achieves a <i>mAP</i><sub>50</sub> of 91.7%, representing an improvement of 3.1% over YOLOv8 and 16.1% over detection transformer (DETR). On the SPDI dataset, our method achieves a <i>mAP</i><sub>50</sub> of 69.3%, showing a 2.1% improvement over YOLOv8 and a 6.6% improvement over DETR. The proposed MRA-YOLOv8 also exhibits great deployment potential. It can be effectively integrated with drone-based inspection systems, allowing for efficient and accurate PV plant inspections. Moreover, to tackle the issue of data imbalance, we propose generating synthetic defect data via generative adversarial networks (GANs), which can supplement the limited defect samples and improve the model’s generalization ability. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-00735f5bf6794c22bbb023091e3fbf4e |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1424-8220 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Sensors |
| spelling | doaj-art-00735f5bf6794c22bbb023091e3fbf4e2025-08-20T02:52:38ZengMDPI AGSensors1424-82202025-03-01255154210.3390/s25051542MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell DefectsNannan Wang0Siqi Huang1Xiangpeng Liu2Zhining Wang3Yi Liu4Zhe Gao5College of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaCollege of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaCollege of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaCollege of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaCollege of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaCollege of Information, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 201418, ChinaTo address the challenges posed by complex backgrounds and the low occurrence in photovoltaic cell images captured by industrial sensors, we propose a novel defect detection method: MRA-YOLOv8. First, a multi-branch coordinate attention network (MBCANet) is introduced into the backbone. The coordinate attention network (CANet) is incorporated to mitigate the noise impact of background information on the detection task, and multiple branches are employed to enhance the model’s feature extraction capability. Second, we integrate a multi-path feature extraction module, ResBlock, into the neck. This module provides finer-grained multi-scale features, improving feature extraction from complex backgrounds and enhancing the model’s robustness. Finally, we implement alpha-minimum point distance-based IoU (AMPDIoU) to the head. This loss function enhances the accuracy and robustness of small object detection by integrating minimum point distance-based IoU (MPDIoU) and Alpha-IoU methods. The results demonstrate that MRA-YOLOv8 outperforms other mainstream methods in detection performance. On the photovoltaic electroluminescence anomaly detection (PVEL-AD) dataset, the proposed method achieves a <i>mAP</i><sub>50</sub> of 91.7%, representing an improvement of 3.1% over YOLOv8 and 16.1% over detection transformer (DETR). On the SPDI dataset, our method achieves a <i>mAP</i><sub>50</sub> of 69.3%, showing a 2.1% improvement over YOLOv8 and a 6.6% improvement over DETR. The proposed MRA-YOLOv8 also exhibits great deployment potential. It can be effectively integrated with drone-based inspection systems, allowing for efficient and accurate PV plant inspections. Moreover, to tackle the issue of data imbalance, we propose generating synthetic defect data via generative adversarial networks (GANs), which can supplement the limited defect samples and improve the model’s generalization ability.https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/5/1542photovoltaic cell defect detectionMBCANetResBlockAMPDIoUMRA-YOLOv8 |
| spellingShingle | Nannan Wang Siqi Huang Xiangpeng Liu Zhining Wang Yi Liu Zhe Gao MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects Sensors photovoltaic cell defect detection MBCANet ResBlock AMPDIoU MRA-YOLOv8 |
| title | MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects |
| title_full | MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects |
| title_fullStr | MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects |
| title_full_unstemmed | MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects |
| title_short | MRA-YOLOv8: A Network Enhancing Feature Extraction Ability for Photovoltaic Cell Defects |
| title_sort | mra yolov8 a network enhancing feature extraction ability for photovoltaic cell defects |
| topic | photovoltaic cell defect detection MBCANet ResBlock AMPDIoU MRA-YOLOv8 |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/25/5/1542 |
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