Aspergillus detection based on deep learning model using YOLOv8 with a small custom dataset

Over the past years, there has been a growing interest in studying the effects of fungal respiratory diseases by the predominant species identified in respiratory cultures from this genus Aspergillus. Machine learning autonomously identifies the five distinct species of Aspergillus. We selected a diverse array to show a wide array of color combinations, dimensions, and configurations, which enhance the incorporation of diversity and intricacy in our research. The split was conducted in a random manner, allocating 70% of the data to the training set, 20% to the validation set, and 10% to the test set. The heterogeneity among various forms of Aspergillus was assessed based on the photos. The photographs were taken against two distinct backgrounds: one in copper and the other in grey color. Multiple elevations and shooting angles were taken into consideration. The crowdedness of the Aspergillus also varied randomly per image. We utilized a smartphone camera boasting a resolution of 32 megapixels. A grand total of 337 photographs were captured, including five Aspergillus species that were appropriately identified. CSPDarknet53 acts as the fundamental structureforYOLOv8, which is constructed on top of DenseNet. The YOLOv8 model attained a mean average precision (mAP) of 90%. YOLOv8 has a significant advantage in terms of its speed in detecting objects, making it suitable for real-time identification situations that demand both high accuracy and few false positives. The results demonstrated that YOLOv8 exhibited outstanding precision and detection performance. This technique is highly effective and efficient in detecting many species of Aspergillus.