A novel hybrid approach for crack detection

Vision-based crack detection is of crucial importance in various industries, and it is very challenging due to weak signals in noisy backgrounds. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid approach for crack detection in raw images, which combines deep learning models and Bayesian probabilistic analysis for robust crack detection. First, we re-train a state-of-the-art object detector (e.g. a Faster R-CNN) to detect crack patches of suitable SNR (signal-noise-ratio). We design a semi-automatic method to generate ground truths of crack patches along crack lines for training. To further improve the accuracy of crack detections over the whole image, we propose a Bayesian integration algorithm to suppress false detections. Specifically, we use a deep CNN to recognize the orientation of the crack segment in each detected patch. Then, a Bayesian probability is computed on the accumulated evidence from detected adjacent patches within a neighborhood based on spatial proximity, orientation consistency and alignment consistency. The patch which lacks local supports is suppressed as false detection. An algorithm to learn the parameters of Bayesian integration is also derived. Extensive experiments and evaluations are performed on a new comprehensive dataset of crack images. The results show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art baseline approach on deep CNN classifier. Ablation experiments are also conducted to show the effectiveness of proposed techniques. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.