Laser weld spot detection based on YOLO-weld

Laser weld point detection is crucial in modern industrial manufacturing, yet it faces challenges such as a limited number of samples, uneven distribution, and diverse, irregular shapes. To address these issues, this paper proposes an innovative model, YOLO-Weld, which achieves lightweight design while enhancing detection accuracy. Firstly, a targeted data augmentation strategy is employed to increase both the quantity and diversity of samples from minority classes. Following this, a Diverse Class Normalization Loss (DCNLoss)function is designed to emphasize the importance of tail data in the model’s training. Secondly, the Adaptive Hierarchical Intersection over Union Loss (AHIoU Loss)function is introduced, which assigns varying levels of attention to different Intersections over Union (IoU) samples, with a particular focus on moderate IoU samples, thereby accelerating the bounding box regression process. Finally, a lightweight multi-scale feature processing module, MSBCSPELAN, is proposed to enhance multi-scale feature handling while reducing the number of model parameters. Experimental results indicate that YOLO-Weld significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of laser weld point detection, with mean Average Precision at 50 ( \(\:{mAP}_{50}\) ) and mean Average Precision at 50:95 ( \(\:{mAP}_{50:95}\) ) increasing by 15.6% and 15.8%, respectively. Additionally, the model’s parameter count is reduced by 0.4 M, GFLOPS decreases by 1.1, precision improves by 4.3%, recall rises by 22.2%, and the F1 score increases by 15.1%.