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Detecting Soccer Balls with Reduced Neural Networks

A Comparison of Multiple Architectures Under Constrained Hardware Scenarios

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Abstract

Object detection techniques that achieve state-of-the-art detection accuracy employ convolutional neural networks, implemented to have lower latency in graphics processing units. Some hardware systems, such as mobile robots, operate under constrained hardware situations, but still benefit from object detection capabilities. Multiple network models have been proposed, achieving comparable accuracy with reduced architectures and leaner operations. Motivated by the need to create a near real-time object detection system for a soccer team of mobile robots operating with x86 CPU-only embedded computers, this work analyses the average precision and inference time of multiple object detection systems in a constrained hardware setting. We train open implementations of MobileNetV2 and MobileNetV3 models with different underlying architectures, achieved by changing their input and width multipliers, as well as YOLOv3, TinyYOLOv3, YOLOv4 and TinyYOLOv4 in an annotated image dataset captured using a mobile robot. We emphasize the speed/accuracy trade-off in the models by reporting their average precision on a test data set and their inference time in videos at different resolutions, under constrained and unconstrained hardware configurations. Results show that MobileNetV3 models have a good trade-off between average precision and inference time in constrained scenarios only, while MobileNetV2 with high width multipliers are appropriate for server-side inference. YOLO models in their official implementations are not suitable for inference in CPUs.

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Materials Availability

The scripts utilized in the experiments presented in this paper are available at https://github.com/douglasrizzo/JINT2020-ball-detection. The image dataset used in the experiments was also made available online [4], along with a static copy of the aforementioned scripts.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP Grant 2019/07665-4) for supporting this project. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FEI University Center, 3972-B Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco Ave., Assunção, São Bernardo do Campo, SP, 09850-901, Brazil

    Douglas De Rizzo Meneghetti, Jonas Henrique Renolfi de Oliveira, Isaac Jesus da Silva, Danilo Hernani Perico & Reinaldo Augusto da Costa Bianchi

  2. Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo, 951 Mutinga Ave., Jardim Santo Elias, São Paulo, SP, 05110-000, Brazil

    Thiago Pedro Donadon Homem

Authors
  1. Douglas De Rizzo Meneghetti
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  2. Thiago Pedro Donadon Homem
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  4. Isaac Jesus da Silva
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Contributions

– Conceptualization: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem; J. H. R. de Oliveira; R. A. C. Bianchi

– Methodology: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem; D. H. Perico

– Software: D. R. Meneghetti

– Investigation: D. R. Meneghetti

– Formal Analysis: D. R. Meneghetti

– Validation: D. R. Meneghetti

– Data curation: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem; J. H. R. de Oliveira; I. J. da Silva; D. H. Perico; R. A. C. Bianchi

– Writing – original draft: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem

– Writing – review & editing: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem; D. H. Perico; R. A. C. Bianchi

– Visualization: D. R. Meneghetti; T. P. D. Homem; R. A. C. Bianchi

– Resources: D. R. Meneghetti; R. A. C. Bianchi

– Funding acquisition: D. R. Meneghetti; R. A. C. Bianchi, Project administration: R. A. C. Bianchi

– Supervision: R. A. C. Bianchi

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Douglas De Rizzo Meneghetti.

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The authors acknowledge the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP Grant 2019/07665-4) for supporting this project. This study was financed in part by the Coordenaç ão de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001.

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Meneghetti, D.D.R., Homem, T.P.D., de Oliveira, J. et al. Detecting Soccer Balls with Reduced Neural Networks. J Intell Robot Syst 101, 53 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01336-y

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