A Deep Learning-Based Framework for Visual Inspection of Plastic Bottles

Abstract

This paper presents a deep learning-based framework for automating the visual inspection of plastic bottles in an Industry 4.0 context, detecting surface defects to enhance product quality. Our contributions include the acceleration of model development through knowledge transfer learning, an inventive data generation strategy that combines physical samples with synthetic data augmentation techniques, an extensive evaluation of pre-trained deep convolutional neural networks, and a user-friendly interface for real-time quality inspection reporting and making the information easily accessible and actionable. In comparison to existing methods, our proposed method outperforms with a higher Accuracy to Size Ratio of 7.0. This characteristic underscores its capacity to efficiently and accurately classify and detect defects across multiple classes while maintaining a low area utilization. This feature not only demonstrates its exceptional performance but also positions it as a practical solution for real-world scenarios with resource constraints.