Comparison of Preprocessing Method Impact on the Detection of Soldering Splashes Using Different YOLOv8 Versions

Abstract

Quality inspection of electronic boards during the manufacturing process is a crucial step, especially in the case of specific and expensive power electronic modules. Soldering splash occurrence decreases the reliability and electric properties of final products. This paper aims to compare different YOLOv8 models (small, medium, and large) with the combination of basic image preprocessing techniques to achieve the best possible performance of the designed algorithm. As preprocessing methods, contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) and image color channel manipulation are used. The results show that a suitable combination of the YOLOv8 model and preprocessing methods leads to an increase in the recall parameter. In our inspection task, recall can be considered the most important metric. The results are supported by a standard two-way ANOVA test.