Hybrid-Segmentor: A Hybrid Approach to Automated Fine-Grained Crack Segmentation in Civil Infrastructure

Detecting and segmenting cracks in infrastructure, such as roads and buildings, is crucial for safety and cost-effective maintenance. In spite of the potential of deep learning, there are challenges in achieving precise results and handling diverse crack types. With the proposed dataset and model, we aim to enhance crack detection and infrastructure maintenance. We introduce Hybrid-Segmentor, an encoder-decoder based approach that is capable of extracting both fine-grained local and global crack features. This allows the model to improve its generalization capabilities in distinguish various type of shapes, surfaces and sizes of cracks. To keep the computational performances low for practical purposes, while maintaining the high the generalization capabilities of the model, we incorporate a self-attention model at the encoder level, while reducing the complexity of the decoder component. The proposed model outperforms existing benchmark models across 5 quantitative metrics (accuracy 0.971, precision 0.804, recall 0.744, F1-score 0.770, and IoU score 0.630), achieving state-of-the-art status.