Fruit classification using attention-based MobileNetV2 for industrial applications

PLoS One. 2022 Feb 25;17(2):e0264586. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0264586. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Recent deep learning methods for fruits classification resulted in promising performance. However, these methods are with heavy-weight architectures in nature, and hence require a higher storage and expensive training operations due to feeding a large number of training parameters. There is a necessity to explore lightweight deep learning models without compromising the classification accuracy. In this paper, we propose a lightweight deep learning model using the pre-trained MobileNetV2 model and attention module. First, the convolution features are extracted to capture the high-level object-based information. Second, an attention module is used to capture the interesting semantic information. The convolution and attention modules are then combined together to fuse both the high-level object-based information and the interesting semantic information, which is followed by the fully connected layers and the softmax layer. Evaluation of our proposed method, which leverages transfer learning approach, on three public fruit-related benchmark datasets shows that our proposed method outperforms the four latest deep learning methods with a smaller number of trainable parameters and a superior classification accuracy. Our model has a great potential to be adopted by industries closely related to the fruit growing and retailing or processing chain for automatic fruit identification and classifications in the future.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Databases, Factual
  • Deep Learning*
  • Fruit / classification*
  • Principal Component Analysis

Grants and funding

Research Training Program (RTP) scholarship funded by the Australian Government and the support and resources provided by CQUniversity. There was no additional external funding received for this study.