A Novel Method for Surface Defect Detection of Photovoltaic Module Based on Independent Component Analysis

This paper proposed a new method for surface defect detection of photovoltaic module based on independent component analysis (ICA) reconstruction algorithm. Firstly, a faultless image is used as the training image. The demixing matrix and corresponding ICs are obtained by applying the ICA in the training image. Then we reorder the ICs according to the range values and reform the de-mixing matrix. Then the reformed de-mixingmatrix is used to reconstruct the defect image. The resulting image can remove the background structures and enhance the local anomalies. Experimental results have shown that the proposed method can effectively detect the presence of defects in periodically patterned surfaces.