ARG-Mask RCNN: An Infrared Insulator Fault-Detection Network Based on Improved Mask RCNN

Traditional power equipment defect-detection relies on manual verification, which places a high demand on the verifier’s experience, as well as a high workload and low efficiency, which can lead to false detection and missed detection. The Mask of the regions with CNN features (Mask RCNN) deep learning model is used to provide a defect-detection approach based on the Mask RCNN of Attention, Rotation, Genetic algorithm (ARG-Mask RCNN), which employs infrared imaging as the data source to assess the features of damaged insulators. For the backbone network of Mask RCNN, the structure of Residual Network 101 (ResNet101) is improved and the attention mechanism is added, which makes the model more alert to small targets and can quickly identify the location of small targets, improve the loss function, integrate the rotation mechanism into the loss function formula, and generate an anchor frame where a rotation angle is used to accurately locate the fault location. The initial hyperparameters of the network are improved, and the Genetic Algorithm Combined with Gradient Descent (GA-GD) algorithm is used to optimize the model hyperparameters, so that the model training results are as close to the global best as possible. The experimental results show that the average accuracy of the insulator fault-detection method proposed in this paper is as high as 98%, and the number of frames per second (FPS) is 5.75, which provides a guarantee of the safe, stable, and reliable operation of our country’s power system.