Lightweight deep learning for real-time road distress detection on mobile devices

Yuanyuan Hu, Ning Chen, Yue Hou (), Xingshi Lin, Baohong Jing and Pengfei Liu ()
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Yuanyuan Hu: RWTH Aachen University
Ning Chen: Beijing University of Technology
Yue Hou: Swansea University
Xingshi Lin: Fujian Yongzheng Construction Quality Inspection Co., Ltd.
Baohong Jing: Qingdao Yicheng Sichuang Link of Things Technology Co., Ltd.
Pengfei Liu: RWTH Aachen University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Efficient and accurate road distress detection is crucial for infrastructure maintenance and transportation safety. Traditional manual inspections are labor-intensive and time-consuming, while increasingly popular automated systems often rely on computationally intensive devices, limiting widespread adoption. To address these challenges, this study introduces MobiLiteNet, a lightweight deep learning approach designed for mobile deployment on smartphones and mixed reality systems. Utilizing a diverse dataset collected from Europe and Asia, MobiLiteNet incorporates Efficient Channel Attention to boost model performance, followed by structural refinement, sparse knowledge distillation, structured pruning, and quantization to significantly increase the computational efficiency while preserving high detection accuracy. To validate its effectiveness, MobiLiteNet improves the existing MobileNet model. Test results show that the improved MobileNet outperforms baseline models on mobile devices. With significantly reduced computational costs, this approach enables real-time, scalable, and accurate road distress detection, contributing to more efficient road infrastructure management and intelligent transportation systems.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-59516-5

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