Weld beads and defects automatic identification, localization, and size calculation based on a lightweight fully convolutional neural network

Weld quality inspection is a key aspect of modern manufacturing. Automatic identification, location, and dimensioning of welds and defects are necessary for complex industrial environments. Weld and defects dimensional data are important indicators for high precision assessment of weld quality, while precise positioning of welds and defects can provide important location data for subsequent processing. In this study, a novel weld and defects detection, location, and size calculation method is proposed based on deep fully convolutional neural networks. Firstly, 43 high-precision high-power laser weld plate scanned images are automatically cropped to 800 pixels × 800 pixels by the proposed sliding window sampling method for training, testing, and validation, while an image data enhancement method is proposed to quadruple the amount of data to improve the model performance. Next, the OU-net image semantic segmentation model is established to accurately identify different detection targets, which can achieve MIoU and MPA values of 78.15% and 85.18% on the validation set after sufficient training, respectively. Then, the proposed cropped segmentation image fusion recovery method is used to obtain the complete weld segmentation image for a complete display of the different inspection targets on the weld plate. Finally, a detection targets localization and size calculation method is applied to accurately obtain the position data and size data of different targets. The validation results show that the proposed detection strategy can locate and measure every weld seam, collapse, overlap, spatter, and hump on the weld plate.