A Comprehensive Survey on Machine Learning Driven Material Defect Detection

Material defects (MD) represent a primary challenge affecting product performance and giving rise to safety issues in related products. The rapid and accurate identification and localization of MD constitute crucial research endeavors in addressing contemporary challenges associated with MD. In recent years, propelled by the swift advancement of machine learning (ML) technologies, particularly exemplified by deep learning, ML has swiftly emerged as the core technology and a prominent research direction for material defect detection (MDD). Through a comprehensive review of the latest literature, we systematically survey the ML techniques applied in MDD into five categories: unsupervised learning, supervised learning, semi-supervised learning, reinforcement learning, and generative learning. We provide a detailed analysis of the main principles and techniques used, together with the advantages and potential challenges associated with these techniques. Furthermore, the survey focuses on the techniques for defect detection in composite materials, which are important types of materials enjoying increasingly wide application in various industries such as aerospace, automotive, construction, and renewable energy. Finally, the survey explores potential future directions in MDD utilizing ML technologies. This survey consolidates ML-based MDD literature and provides a foundation for future research and practice.