EBBA-detector: An effective detector for defect detection in solar panel EL images with unbalanced data

Yixing Zhang; Ziyan Mo; Zhuan Xin; Xianyu Chen; Yuqin Deng; Xuan Dong

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0325676

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 10, 2025
10 Mar 2025 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325676.r001
Decision Letter - Muhammad Waqar Akram, Editor PONE-D-25-11855EBBA-Detector: An effective detector for defect detection in solar panel EL images with unbalanced DataPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zhang, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR's comments: The manuscript requires revision and rereview according to the reviewer comments. Additionally, few other comments are: The images are not clear to check the results of detection. Provide high quality and clear figures. If the images quality is deteriorated during uploading as separate figures, then they can be included inside the manuscript file (set high quality option in text editor) for review purpose. Add number of images/instances of each defect class in different data splits to show how rare and smaller defects and data imbalance is handled. Focus more on detection results of rare and smaller defects. Add and discuss related results. How they are improved? As this is the main point addressed by this study. PVEL-AD dataset is larger in size. How images are selected? ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 24 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org . When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). 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If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access. Additional Editor Comments: The manuscript requires revision and rereview according to the reviewer comments. Additionally, few other comments are: The images are not clear to check the results of detection. Provide high quality and clear figures. If the images quality is deteriorated during uploading as separate figures, then they can be included inside the manuscript file (set high quality option in text editor) for review purpose. Add number of images/instances of each defect class in different data splits to show how rare and smaller defects and data imbalance is handled. Focus more on detection results of rare and smaller defects. Add and discuss related results. How they are improved? As this is the main point addressed by this study. PVEL-AD dataset is larger in size. How images are selected? [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper proposes the EBBA-Detector to address challenges such as varying defect sizes, severe image background interference, and imbalanced data sample distribution. This work is valuable, but I still have some suggestions as follows: (1) The authors need to clarify the contribution of this paper to the field and how it differs from other similar works in the introduction. (2) In the literature review section, it is recommended to include more recent relevant studies. Suggested references are as follows: Reference: [1] A real-time anchor-free defect detector with global and local feature enhancement for surface defect detection[J]. Expert Systems with Applications, 2024, 246: 123199. [2]An efficient CNN-based detector for photovoltaic module cells defect detection in electroluminescence images[J]. Solar Energy, 2024, 267: 112245. (3) The authors should provide the number of parameters and the inference speed of the proposed method. (4) The conclusion section can be further expanded to discuss the limitations of the proposed method and suggest more specific directions for future research. Reviewer #2: Fig 1, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13: Replace with high-resolution images. Tables 3–4: Adjust column widths, align decimals, and highlight critical results. Confusion Matrix (Fig 12): Improve color contrast and label readability. Training Curves (Fig 9): Ensure axis labels and legends are clear. The manuscript’s technical content is strong, but it is not acceptable in its current format. Address the visual clarity issues and resubmit. If the figures are extracted from low-quality sources, regenerate them directly from the original data or software (e.g., MATLAB, Python plots). For tables, use LaTeX formatting or spreadsheet tools to ensure professionalism. Data Presentation: Numerical results in tables and figures (e.g., AP/mAP values) should be bolded or highlighted for key comparisons. Confusion matrices (Fig 12) need sharper color contrast and labels. Consistency: Ensure all figures follow the same style (font, axis scales, etc.) and are referenced properly in the text. ****** 6. 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PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org . Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325676.r002
Revision 1
7 May 2025 Author Response Dear Academic editor and Reviewers, Thank you for your constructive feedback and the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We have carefully addressed all the comments. Below, we provide a point-by-point response to each concern. Academic Editor’s Comments: 1. Image Clarity All figures have been regenerated using high-resolution sources. 2. Data Splits for Rare/Small Defects A new Table 1 in Section 4.A details the number of instances per defect class across training, validation, and test sets. In Section 4.D, based on the results of the ablation experiments, we have described in detail how our proposed method handles rare and smaller defects, as well as data imbalance issues. This provides a more comprehensive understanding of our approach to dealing with these challenges. 3. Discussing Improvements in Detecting Rare and Smaller Defects We have expanded the conclusion discussion in Section 4.D. By analyzing each proposed module, we have highlighted the positive impacts on the detection results of rare and smaller defects. This analysis clearly demonstrates how our method improvements contribute to better detection performance for these types of defects. 4. PVEL-AD Dataset Selection Section 4.A now includes a detailed description of the image selection criteria for the PVEL-AD dataset. This clarifies how we managed the large - scale dataset and selected appropriate images for our study. Reviewer #1’s Comments: 1. Clarify Contributions in Introduction We have updated the introduction section to clearly state the improvements over current research and highlight our main work. This revision makes it easier for readers to understand the unique contributions of our paper to the field, as well as the differences from other similar studies. 2. Include Recent Literature Three more recent research including the suggested references ([19], [36] and [37]) have been added, with a discussion of their relevance to our work. 3. Model Parameters and Inference Speed We have added the model's number of parameters and inference speed in Section 4.C. This information helps readers better evaluate the performance and efficiency of our proposed method. 4. Expand Conclusion with Limitations In the "Conclusion" section (Section 6), we have further expanded the content to discuss the limitations of our proposed method. Additionally, we have provided more specific directions for future research, which will guide further exploration in this area. Reviewer #2’s Comments: 1. Figure Quality (Figs. 1, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13) For Fig 1, 3, 8, 10, 11, 13, we have resubmitted clear and high-resolution images. 2. Table Formatting (Tables 3–4) We have adjusted the column widths of Tables, aligned the decimals, and highlighted the critical results. This makes the data in the tables more organized and easier to read. 3. Confusion Matrix (Fig. 12) We have enhanced the color contrast and label readability of the confusion matrix (Fig 12). 4. Training Curves (Fig. 9) We have ensured that the training curve (Fig 9) has clear axis labels and legends by resubmitting a high-quality version. 5. Data Presentation Key numerical results are highlighted in yellow in Tables 4–5. 6. Consistency All figures now follow a unified style and are referenced appropriately in the text. We appreciate the reviewers’ thorough evaluation and believe these revisions significantly strengthen the manuscript. Please contact us if further clarifications are needed. We look forward to your positive feedback and the opportunity to have our work published in PLOS ONE. Sincerely, Yixing Zhang Corresponding Author Email: yixingzhangyz@163.com Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Rebuttal Letter.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325676.r003
Decision Letter - Muhammad Waqar Akram, Editor EBBA-Detector: An effective detector for defect detection in solar panel EL images with unbalanced Data PONE-D-25-11855R1 Dear Dr. Zhang, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Muhammad Waqar Akram, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325676.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Muhammad Waqar Akram, Editor PONE-D-25-11855R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zhang, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset You will receive further instructions from the production team, including instructions on how to review your proof when it is ready. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few days to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Muhammad Waqar Akram Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325676.r005

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