Research on Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Defect Detection Algorithm Based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) defect detection is critical for quality control in electronics manufacturing. Traditional manual inspection and classical Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) methods face challenges in speed, consistency, and flexibility. This paper proposes a CNN-based approach for automatic PCB defect detection using the YOLOv5 model. The method leverages a Convolutional Neural Network to identify various PCB defect types (e.g., open circuits, short circuits, and missing holes) from board images. In this study, a model was trained on a PCB image dataset with detailed annotations. Data augmentation techniques, such as sharpening and noise filtering, were applied to improve robustness. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach could locate and classify multiple defect types on PCBs, with overall detection precision and recall above 90% and 91%, respectively, enabling reliable automated inspection. A brief comparison with the latest YOLOv8 model is also presented, showing that the proposed CNN-based detector offers competitive performance. This study shows that deep learning-based defect detection can improve the PCB inspection efficiency and accuracy significantly, paving the way for intelligent manufacturing and quality assurance in PCB production. From a sensing perspective, we frame the system around an industrial RGB camera and controlled illumination, emphasizing how imaging-sensor choices and settings shape defect visibility and model robustness, and sketching future sensor-fusion directions.