Deep reinforcement learning enables adaptive-image augmentation for automated optical inspection of plant rust

This study proposes an adaptive image augmentation scheme using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to improve the performance of a deep learning-based automated optical inspection system. The study addresses the challenge of inconsistency in the performance of single image augmentation methods. It introduces a DRL algorithm, DQN, to select the most suitable augmentation method for each image. The proposed approach extracts geometric and pixel indicators to form states, and uses DeepLab-v3+ model to verify the augmented images and generate rewards. Image augmentation methods are treated as actions, and the DQN algorithm selects the best methods based on the images and segmentation model. The study demonstrates that the proposed framework outperforms any single image augmentation method and achieves better segmentation performance than other semantic segmentation models. The framework has practical implications for developing more accurate and robust automated optical inspection systems, critical for ensuring product quality in various industries. Future research can explore the generalizability and scalability of the proposed framework to other domains and applications. The code for this application is uploaded at https://github.com/lynnkobe/Adaptive-Image-Augmentation.git.