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Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science)  2026, Vol. 60 Issue (5): 915-925    DOI: 10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.05.001
    
Concrete crack detection in dark environments based on biomimetic tactile technology
Zixiang LI1(),Kecheng LU1,Haibing CAI1,Weishuai XIE1,Guangdong ZHANG2
1. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan 232001, China
2. Shantui Construction Machinery Limited Company, Jining 272000, China
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Abstract  

To address the challenge of difficult identification of concrete cracks in extremely dark environments, a concrete crack recognition method based on biomimetic tactile technology was proposed. By simulating the tactile perception mechanism of organisms, a tactile sensing system and a deep learning model were constructed to achieve crack detection in dark environments. A high-sensitivity silicone tactile probe was designed and combined with a multi-light source imaging system and the Lambertian reflection model, and the three-dimensional texture of cracks was reconstructed through elastomer deformation and light-shadow gradient changes, overcoming the reliance on visual information in dark environments. On this basis, a tactile segmentation network for concrete cracks (TSCC-Net) was constructed. Through the collaboration of a semantic perception extractor, mutual fusion module, and auxiliary supervision module, precise segmentation of cracks in tactile images was achieved. Experimental results showed that TSCC-Net achieved an IOU of 86.3% in tactile image crack recognition, with a model parameter size of 12.86 MB and an inference speed of 114.5 fps, significantly outperforming traditional visual models. In particular, TSCC-Net demonstrated stronger robustness in narrow cracks and areas with complex textures compared to models such as U-Net, Segformer, and DeepLabV3+.



Key wordsbiomimetic tactile technology      concrete crack      computer vision      deep learning model      semantic segmentation network     
Received: 25 September 2025      Published: 06 May 2026
CLC:  TU 375  
Fund:  安徽理工大学高层次引进人才科研启动基金资助项目(2022yjrc76);国家自然科学基金青年项目(C类)(52508426);安徽省住房城乡建设科学技术计划项目(2023-YF011).
Cite this article:

Zixiang LI,Kecheng LU,Haibing CAI,Weishuai XIE,Guangdong ZHANG. Concrete crack detection in dark environments based on biomimetic tactile technology. Journal of ZheJiang University (Engineering Science), 2026, 60(5): 915-925.

URL:

https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/10.3785/j.issn.1008-973X.2026.05.001     OR     https://www.zjujournals.com/eng/Y2026/V60/I5/915


基于触觉仿生技术的黑暗环境混凝土裂缝检测

混凝土裂缝在极端黑暗环境中难以识别,为此提出基于触觉仿生技术的混凝土裂缝识别方法. 通过模拟生物触觉感知机理,构建触觉传感系统与深度学习模型,实现黑暗环境下的裂缝检测. 设计高灵敏度硅胶触觉探头,结合多光源成像系统与朗伯反射模型,通过弹性体形变与光影梯度变化重建裂缝三维纹理,突破黑暗环境对视觉信息的依赖. 构建触觉混凝土裂缝分割网络(TSCC-Net),通过语义感知提取器、互融合模块与辅助监督模块的协同,实现触觉图像中裂缝的精准分割. 实验结果表明,TSCC-Net在触觉图像裂缝识别中交并比达到86.3%,模型参数量为12.86 MB,推理速度达到114.5 帧/s,显著优于传统视觉模型;TSCC-Net在窄缝与纹理复杂区域表现出比U-Net、Segformer及DeepLabV3+更强的鲁棒性.


关键词: 触觉仿生技术,  混凝土裂缝,  计算机视觉,  深度学习模型,  语义分割网络 
Fig.1 Comparative analysis of human tactile perception and biomimetic tactile technology for concrete crack detection
Fig.2 Processing procedure of tactile probe
Fig.3 Surface topography of tactile probe before and after cyclic pressing and friction
Fig.4 Multi-light source imaging system of tactile probe
Fig.5 Probe pressing mechanism and mobile platform
Fig.6 Simulated specimens with different crack widths
Fig.7 Reconstruction effect of crack morphology with different widths
Fig.8 Overall architecture of tactile segmentation network for concrete cracks
Fig.9 Schematic diagram of semantic perception extractor
Fig.10 Schematic diagram of mutual fusion module
Fig.11 Image of concrete cracks and tactile image labels
Fig.12 Data enhancement legend
模型配置IOU/%NP/MB
1×1Conv+dwConv扩展因子为486.415.92
1×1Conv+dwConv扩展因子为286.312.86
MLP+ dwConv扩展因子为285.917.24
MLP+ dwConv扩展因子为486.023.68
Tab.1 Ablation study results on feedforward network structure and expansion factors
${\lambda }_{\text{1}} $/${\lambda }_{\text{2}} $/${\lambda }_{\text{3}} $IOUF1
1.0/0.3/0.384.786.8
1.0/0.4/0.486.388.5
1.0/0.5/0.585.187.3
1.0/0.6/0.685.587.8
Tab.2 Ablation study results of weight combinations for auxiliary supervision module %
模型配置IOUF1
基线模型(仅特征金字塔+分割头)80.983.1
基线模型+语义感知提取器83.886.4
基线模型+互融合模块81.783.9
基线模型+辅助监督模块81.383.5
基线模型+语义感知提取器+互融合模块85.687.7
基线模型+语义感知提取器+辅助监督模块85.487.3
基线模型+互融合模块+辅助监督模块85.086.9
TSCC-Net86.388.5
Tab.3 Module ablation study results of tactile segmentation network for concrete cracks %
Fig.13 Thermal map of module ablation study
模型IOU/%F1/%ACC/%PPV/%TPR/%TNR/%NP/MBRF/(帧·s?1)
U-Net81.283.487.683.184.585.724.8934.9
Segformer80.881.384.182.583.283.83.71117.6
PSPNet83.586.388.684.986.387.946.7183.8
HRNet84.387.189.785.587.488.49.6348.2
DeepLabV3+84.987.790.786.388.289.752.3952.6
TSCC-Net86.388.592.487.289.890.612.86114.5
Tab.4 Performance comparison with different semantic segmentation models
Fig.14 Comparison of different models for concrete crack segmentation
Fig.15 Comparison of different models for infrared pavement crack segmentation
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