Steel Surface Defect Detection Algorithm Based on YOLOv8

To improve the accuracy of steel surface defect detection, an improved model of multi-directional optimization based on the YOLOv8 algorithm was proposed in this study. First, we innovate the CSP Bottleneck with the two convolutions (C2F) module in YOLOv8 by introducing deformable convolution (DCN) technology to enhance the learning and expression ability of complex texture and irregular shape defect features. Secondly, the advanced Bidirectional Feature Pyramid Network (BiFPN) structure is adopted to realize the weight distribution learning of input features of different scales in the feature fusion stage, allowing for more effective integration of multi-level feature information. Next, the BiFormer attention mechanism is embedded in the backbone network, allowing the model to adaptively allocate attention based on target features, such as flexibly and efficiently skipping non-critical areas, and focusing on identifying potentially defective parts. Finally, we adjusted the loss function from Complete-Intersection over Union (CIoU) to Wise-IoUv3 (WIoUv3) and used its dynamic non-monotony focusing property to effectively solve the problem of overfitting the low quality target bounding box. The experimental results show that the mean Average Precision (mAP) of the improved model in the task of steel surface defect detection reaches 84.8%, which depicts a significant improvement of 6.9% compared with the original YOLO8 model. The improved model can quickly and accurately locate and classify all kinds of steel surface defects in practical applications and meet the needs of steel defect detection in industrial production.