A dynamic weights-based wavelet attention neural network for defect detection

Automatic defect detection plays an important role in industrial production. Deep learning-based defect detection methods have achieved promising results. However, there are still two challenges in the current defect detection methods: 1) high-precision detection of weak defects is limited and 2) it is difficult for current defect detection methods to achieve satisfactory results dealing with strong background noise. This article proposes a dynamic weights-based wavelet attention neural network (DWWA-Net) to address these issues, which can enhance the feature representation of defects and simultaneously denoise the image, thereby improving the detection accuracy of weak defects and defects under strong background noise. First, wavelet neural networks and dynamic wavelet convolution networks (DWCNets) are presented, which can effectively filter background noise and improve model convergence. Second, a multiview attention module is designed, which can direct the network attention toward potential targets, thereby guaranteeing the accuracy for detecting weak defects. Finally, a feature feedback module is proposed, which can enhance the feature information of defects to further improve the weak defect detection accuracy. The DWWA-Net can be used for defect detection in multiple industrial fields. Experiment results illustrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods (mean precision: GC10-DET: 6.0%; NEU: 4.3%). The code is made in https://github.com/781458112/DWWA.