SPR-YOLOv8: A Real-Time Instance Segmentation and Dynamic Size Measurement System for Diamond Particles

To meet the demand for real-time and accurate diamond particle size measurement in industrial scenarios-where traditional image processing methods lack robustness in complex environments and existing deep learning models struggle to balance accuracy and efficiency-this paper proposes an integrated framework for dynamic segmentation and morphological analysis of diamond particles based on video streams. A fully automated data acquisition system consisting of a high-precision motion stage, an industrial camera, and an optical microscope is first constructed to capture dynamic particle images. Based on YOLOv8n-seg, a lightweight SPR-YOLOv8 instance segmentation model is then developed with three key improvements: a Large Separable Kernel Attention (LSKA) mechanism is introduced into the SPPF module to enhance feature discriminability; the RepBlock module is adopted in the neck network to improve feature fusion efficiency through structural re-parameterization; and a P2 small-object detection head is introduced while large-object detection branches are removed, enabling the model to focus on tiny, densely distributed particles. Finally, a contour-based geometric analysis method is proposed for particle size estimation based on segmentation results. Experimental results show that the proposed model achieves an mAP@0.9 of 0.861 while maintaining a low parameter count (0.97 M) and a high inference speed of 500 FPS. Compared with the conventional OpenCV-based method (CADPS), the proposed DPSCA framework reduces the mean absolute percentage error in particle size measurement by over 70%, while also demonstrating strong accuracy and stability in consecutive-frame tracking. Overall, this study provides a practical and efficient automated inspection solution for online quality control in superhard material manufacturing, and supplementary cross-scale experiments further demonstrate promising robustness on diamond particles beyond the primary 180-250 μm range.