End Image Defect Detection of Float Glass Based on Faster Region-Based Convolutional Neural Network

The float glass contains various defects for reasons of raw materials and production process. These defects can be observed on the end images of the glass. Since the defects are correlated with specific links of the production process, it is possible to discover the process problems by identifying the location and type of defects in end images. Based on faster region-based convolutional neural network (Faster RCNN), this paper proposes a deep learning method that improves the feature extraction network, and adds a Laplacian convolutional layer to preprocess the end images. Considering the defect features in end images, the anchor box size was adjusted to speed up the training. Besides, the lack of generalizability induced by small dataset was solved through data enhancement. With improved VGG16 as the feature extraction layer, a glass defect detection model was established, whose generalizability was improved through transfer learning. The experimental results show that the proposed model achieved a mean detection accuracy of 94% on actual test set, meeting the requirements for actual use in factories.