Technical Papers
Jun 5, 2024

EVPTMFF: Bridge Crack Detection Based on Efficient Visual Pyramid Transformer and Multiple-Feature Fusion

Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 38, Issue 4

Abstract

One of the key tasks to ensure infrastructure safety is the periodic detection of bridge cracks. Since manual crack detection is subjective and inefficient, it is very important to develop an automatic crack recognition system by using machine vision. Inspired by the pyramid vision transformer (PVT) and the feature pyramid network (FPN) variants, a method combining PVT, residual transformer (REST), holistically nested edge detection (HED), and downstream detection tasks is proposed in this paper, which is named EVPTMFF (efficient visual pyramid transformer and multiple-feature fusion). Based on the PVT, the multiheaded attention module was replaced and the efficient attention module was adopted, which could process the data efficiently and flexibly. To improve the performance of EVPTMFF, the original perceptual field windows were changed. The adjacent windows were partially overlapped, which was more conducive to feature interaction and improves detection performance. To prove the generalization ability of the model, three different data sets related to bridges were collected and formed. We carried out experiments on these three data sets, and EVPTMFF showed good results. Especially for larger data sets, the performance advantage was more significant.

Practical Applications

The crack detection model proposed in this paper presents a good detection effect under different illumination and interference. And the detection results, collected data, time, and other information are saved to the bridge crack detection software. This can help engineers quickly and accurately detect cracks on the bridge surface, as well as predict the development trend of cracks and possible safety issues. In practical application, the bridge crack detection system can help engineers find and solve the bridge crack problem in time and avoid the security risks and economic losses caused by cracks. At the same time, the efficiency and accuracy of bridge maintenance can be improved, and the maintenance cost and time can be reduced. The bridge crack detection system can be integrated with other hardware equipment and management systems to form a complete bridge management platform, which contributes to the traffic construction and social and economic development of the city.

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Data Availability Statement

Some or all data, models, or code supporting the findings of this study may be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

The research is jointly supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (2023-YBGY-264,2020ZDLGY09-03) and the Key Research and Development Program of Guangxi (GK-AB20159032).

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Go to Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 38Issue 4August 2024

History

Received: Oct 25, 2023
Accepted: Mar 14, 2024
Published online: Jun 5, 2024
Published in print: Aug 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Nov 5, 2024

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Gang Li, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Energy and Electric Engineering, Chang’an Univ., Xi’an 710064, China.
School of Electronics and Control Engineering, Chang’an Univ., Xi’an 710064, China (corresponding author). Email: [email protected]
Engineer, Dept. of Security, Chang’an Univ., Xi’an 710064, China. Email: [email protected]
Shaanxi Expressway Engineering Testing Inspection & Testing Co., Ltd., No. 57 Fengcheng Rd., Weiyang District, Xi’an 710086, China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4759-5393. Email: [email protected]

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