BS-YOLOV5S: INSULATOR DEFECT DETECTION WITH ATTENTION MECHANISM AND MULTI-SCALE FUSION

With the rapid development of deep learning, the use of object detection algorithms for aerial insulator image defect detection has become the main way. To address the problems of low detection accuracy for small targets, weak representation ability of feature maps, insufficient extracted key information, and the shortage of aerial insulator defect datasets, this paper proposes an improved insulator defect detection method named BS-YOLOv5s based on 3-D attention mechanism and Bi-Slim-neck using YOLOv5s as the base network. Additionally, to solve the problem of the shortage of aerial insulator datasets, this paper proposes a new aerial insulator dataset Weather-Insulator (WI) containing a variety of defect scenarios. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method not only greatly improves the detection accuracy, but also maintains a high detection speed, satisfying the engineering requirements for insulator defect detection.