Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10,

1158–1175
DOI: 10.1093/jcde/qwad042
Advance access publication date: 23 May 2023
Research Article

An improved YOLOX approach for low-light and small

object detection: PPE on tunnel construction sites
1,2
Zijian Wang , Zixiang Cai3 and Yimin Wu1 , *
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
2
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
3
Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, Alibaba Group, Hangzhou 311100, China
∗
Corresponding author. E-mail: wuyimin531@csu.edu.cn

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Abstract
Tunnel construction sites pose a significant safety risk to workers due to the low-light conditions that can affect visibility and lead to
accidents. Therefore, identifying personal protective equipment (PPE) is critical to prevent injuries and fatalities. A few researches have
addressed the challenges posed by tunnel construction sites whose light conditions are lower and images are captured from a distance.
In this study, we proposed an improved YOLOX approach and a new dataset for detecting low-light and small PPE. We modified the
YOLOX architecture by adding ConvNeXt modules to the backbone for deep feature extraction and introducing the fourth YOLOX head
for enhancing multiscale prediction. Additionally, we adopted the CLAHE algorithm for augmenting low-light images after comparing
it with eight other methods. Consequently, the improved YOLOX approach achieves a mean average precision of 86.94%, which is
4.23% higher than the original model and outperforms selected state-of-the-art. It also improves the average precision of small object
classes by 7.17% on average and attains a real-time processing speed of 22 FPS (Frames Per Second). Furthermore, we constructed a
novel dataset with 8285 low-light instances and 6814 small ones. The improved YOLOX approach offers accurate and efficient detection
performance, which can reduce safety incidents on tunnel construction sites.

Keywords: computer vision, machine learning, deep learning, tunnel management, construction safety

1. Introduction have demonstrated that wearing helmets effectively reduces the

likelihood of skull fractures, neck sprains, and concussions (Hume
The construction industry is labor-intensive, characterized by
& Mills, 1995), including a 95% decrease in head injuries (Sud-
complex working environments and frequent safety accidents.
erman et al., 2014). In many countries, properly worn PPE is re-
According to statistics from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-
quired in construction environments and serves as a crucial eval-
Rural Development of China, in 2019, there were 904 construction-
uation criterion for construction projects. With the installation of
related fatalities, with 54% resulting from falls and 16% caused by
cameras on construction sites and advancements in computer vi-
collisions. Furthermore, the trend of safety accidents continues
sion, efficient and accurate PPE detection based on deep learn-
to rise each year (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Develop-
ing techniques offers a new approach to improve construction
ment, 2020). Similarly, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
safety. By capturing images through cameras, researchers utilize
reported 147 fatal injuries to workers in 2018–2019, primarily due
pre-trained deep learning models to detect PPE in real time and
to falls from heights without adequate protective equipment (HSE,
notify workers or managers to take appropriate action.
2017).
Tunnel constructions are underground with limited natural
Compared to outdoor construction sites, tunnel environments
light, and surveillance cameras are typically positioned far from
present more complex lighting conditions, with little to no natu-
work areas. Consequently, many low-light and small PPE objects
ral light (Fig. 1). This can affect the vision and consequently lead
appear in the collected images. This study presents an improved
to accidents. Visibility is further compromised by heavy dust gen-
YOLOX approach to address the critical low-light and small ob-
erated during tunnel excavation. Additionally, the situation wors-
ject detection challenges on tunnel construction sites in Section 3.
ens when large construction equipment, such as excavators and
Specifically, to tackle the small object issue, we modify the original
transport trucks, operate in the narrow tunnel space, obstructing
YOLOX architecture by adding neural network modules for fea-
workers’ view and making it harder to identify safety hazards. As a
ture extraction and small object prediction. To enhance detection
result, tunnel construction sites are more likely to face safety ac-
performance in low-light environments, we select a data augmen-
cidents, resulting in injuries and even deaths, along with project
tation algorithm after reviewing a series of traditional computer
delays.
vision and deep learning augmentation methods. Furthermore,
The majority of injuries and fatalities can be prevented by prop-
we construct a novel dataset by collecting real tunnel construc-
erly wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), such as hel-
tion images and define the criteria for multiscale and different
mets, safety glasses, and gloves (OSHA, 2005). Previous studies

Received: December 27, 2022. Revised: May 7, 2023. Accepted: May 11, 2023
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Computational Design and Engineering. This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits
non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact
journals.permissions@oup.com
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175
Figure 1: Examples of (a) tunnel and (b) outdoor construction sites.
light condition objects in Section 4. And experiments and results
are listed in Section 5. Discussion and conclusions are followed in
Section 6 and 7.
2. Related Works
Traditional approaches for detecting PPE usually adopt sensors
such as global position systems (GPSs; Zhang et al., 2015) and ra-
dio frequency identification (Kelm et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2019).
Sensor-based PPE detection is not affected by many external fac-
tors, such as weather, but it usually requires users to wear addi-
tional equipment for data communication (e.g., sending GPS sig-
nals), and long-term maintenance is needed. Another direction is
the vision-based approach, which uses cameras to capture images
on construction sites and applies image-processing techniques
to detect PPE objects. Many studies use traditional computer vi-
sion algorithms. For example, Rubaiyat et al. (2016) adopted Cir-
cle Hough Transform algorithm to detect helmets, and Shrestha
et al. (2015) used edge detection for the head, face, and helmet.
Instead of recognizing shapes, Du et al. (2011) presented a color-
based system that sets color thresholds for different PPE classes.
Rather than using computer vision algorithms, many deep learn-
ing projects are described in Section 2.1. These experiments typi-
cally focus on the outdoor environment without considering light
conditions, like underground tunnels. Therefore, Section 2.2 re-
views the techniques for enhancing low-light images. Finally, re-
search gaps and objectives are listed in Section 2.3.
2.1. Deep learning for PPE detection
Deep learning techniques for detecting PPE have been imple-
mented in various industries and scenarios. For instance, Choo
et al. (2023) developed an automated system to identify electronic
workers at heights to prevent falls from heights, while Ke et al.
(2022) and Karlsson et al. (2022) proposed lightweight PPE algo-
rithms for detecting PPE in industrial environments. Similarly,
these techniques have also been applied to university laboratories
to enhance student safety (Ali et al., 2022). There are also numer-
ous studies on using deep learning to detect PPE on construction
sites, which is a common scenario where accidents can easily hap-
pen, and successful implementation could replace manual moni-
toring and improve construction site safety (Lee et al., 2023; Wang
et al., 2021).
The early-stage research directly applies deep learning models
to construction sites without network architecture improvements.
Faster R-CNN, for example, was a popular model for detecting hel-
mets (Akbarzadeh et al., 2020; Fang et al., 2018a; Saudi et al., 2020).
In a study by Fang et al. (2018a), more than 100 000 images of con-
struction workers were selected from far-field surveillance videos
| 1159
of 25 construction sites, and a faster R-CNN model was trained
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on the collected images to achieve a precision of 95.7%. How-
ever, the dataset is not publicly available. Another research used
two faster R-CNN models to predict safety issues in which one
model detected the presence of workers, while the other predicted
helmets and vests (Akbarzadeh et al., 2020). Additionally, a sin-
gle shot multibox detector (SSD) was trained to predict the col-
ors of helmets (Wu et al., 2019). Nath et al. (2020) compared differ-
ent labeling approaches where the first approach treated workers
and PPE classes separately, while the second regarded a worker
with PPE as a class (e.g., a worker with a helmet, a worker with a
vest). The experiments found that the second approach had bet-
ter accuracy, but its scalability was limited when implemented in
other scenarios. Wang et al. (2021) designed experiments to com-
pare the performance of three YOLO models – YOLOv3, YOLOv4,
and YOLOv5 – for detecting four helmet colors, vests, and work-
ers. They found that YOLOv5x had the highest accuracy, while
YOLOv5s had the fastest speed. Additionally, Ferdous and Ahsan
(2022) compared the latest YOLOX anchor-free model with pre-
vious YOLO models and found that the mean average precision
(mAP) increased by three percentage points to 90% when com-
pared with Wang et al. (2021) on the same datasets. Another re-
search study compared the performances of different deep learn-
ing models for detecting PPE using the same datasets. Here, the
YOLO series models reported the best mAP (53.8%) and the fastest
speed (10 FPS) when compared to SSD and faster R-CNN (Wu et al.,
2019).
These previous mentioned studies validate the feasibility of ap-
plying deep learning for PPE detection but researchers soon re-
alized that these original models cannot meet various require-
ments from the specific situations of construction sites. There-
fore, customized models and techniques are developed for tack-
ling the problems of reducing model size, speeding up processing
speed, etc. To increase efficiency, Fang et al. (2018c) presented an
improved faster R-CNN, which shortened the processing time for
each image to 0.101 s. In similar research, Xiong & Tang (2021)
proposed a pose-guided anchoring framework to detect multiclass
PPE in working spaces. They adopted an OpenPose model to pre-
dict the skeleton and inputted its results into the part attention
regions for PPE classification, showing high accuracy and speed
in small images. Another direction is to reduce the size and pa-
rameters of models. For instance, Chen et al. (2023a) improved the
YOLOv4 algorithm by using a lightweight network called PP-LCNet
as the backbone network and applying deepwise separable con-
volution to reduce the model parameters. Similarly, Chen et al.
(2023b) introduced a lightweight architecture based on YOLOv5s
with Bi-FPN network that has fewer parameters and a smaller
weight size, while still maintaining similar performance. To add
1160 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection
more functionality to PPE detection, researchers have explored
the use of spatial relationships to determine if workers are prop-
erly wearing their PPE. For example, Tang et al. (2020) developed a
novel human–object interaction recognition method that uses po-
tential worker PPE box pairs to determine compliance. Meanwhile,
Chen and Demachi (2020) used the Euclidean distance between
the bounding boxes of hard hats and the neck to identify the exis-
tence of helmets on workers. Cheng et al. (2022) designed a mech-
anism for monitoring worker PPE statuses across multiple cam-
eras with consistent identities. Lastly, Lee et al. (2023) presented a
post-processing algorithm that classifies the correlation between
workers and PPE into four statuses to help prevent potential acci-
dents. Another approach is to combine it with trade recognition
output to check if workers meet certification constraints. Fang
et al. (2018b) demonstrated this by merging PPE detection results
with trade recognition output. These techniques and models have
the potential to improve safety in various work environments by
ensuring workers are properly equipped with PPE.
It is worth noting that despite the availability of open datasets
for construction sites, none of them are specifically collected
from tunnels. For instance, the SHWD dataset includes over 7000
images, with 3200 of them collected from outdoor construction
sites that have sufficient lighting njvisionpower (2019). Other
datasets, such as GDUT (njvisionpower, 2019), pictor (Wu et al.,
2019), and CHV (Wang et al., 2021), are also collected from outdoor
construction sites where instances are under natural lighting con-
ditions. Developing low-light datasets will not only facilitate the
training and evaluation of PPE detection models for tunnel work-
ers, but it will also help to improve the safety and well-being of
workers by providing better tools for monitoring PPE compliance
in tunnels.
2.2. Low-light image enhancement
Images captured under poor illumination often exhibit character-
istics such as low brightness, low contrast, a narrow gray range,
color distortion, and noise (Kim et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2020). Es-
pecially for underground construction sites, their images are cap-
tured without natural light and with limited illumination spots,
resulting in low-light and uneven illumination. These low-light
images affect human understanding and lower the performance
of image processing (Wang et al., 2020). Thus, a group of algorithms
has been developed to improve image quality for better visual-
ization and the performance of subsequent processing. Known as
low-light data enhancement algorithms, they can be divided into
two categories: computer vision and deep learning. The computer
vision algorithms are model-based, while the deep learning ones
are data-driven techniques that use historical data to find latent
patterns for predicting unknown samples.
Images captured under poor illumination often exhibit certain
characteristics such as low brightness, low contrast, a narrow gray
range, color distortion, and noise (Kim et al., 2014; Wang et al.,
2020). This is especially problematic for underground construc-
tion sites, where images are captured without natural light and
with limited illumination spots, resulting in low-light and uneven
illumination. These low-light images can negatively impact hu-
man understanding and the performance of image processing al-
gorithms (Wang et al., 2020). To address this issue, a group of al-
gorithms has been developed to improve image quality for bet-
ter visualization and the performance of subsequent processing.
These algorithms are known as low-light data enhancement al-
gorithms and can be divided into two categories: computer vision
and deep learning. Computer vision algorithms are model-based,
while deep learning techniques are data-driven and use historical
data to find latent patterns for predicting unknown samples.
Histogram equalization (HE) algorithms are commonly used
computer vision techniques that adjust the output gray levels to
spread out the most frequent intensity values and increase the
image contrast, making darker details in the image more visible
(Acharya & Ray, 2005; Lee et al., 2015). However, this approach uses
global HE, which can result in some local areas being too dark or
too bright. To address this limitation, researchers developed adap-
tive histogram equalization (AHE; Kim et al., 1998), which uses lo-
cal contrast to improve the technique. However, this approach can
create noise problems. To overcome this issue, contrast-limited
AHE (CLAHE) was developed to avoid excessive enhancement of
image contrast that AHE could produce by limiting local contrast
enhancement (Reza, 2004).
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The retinex theory mimics the way human eyes perceive color
and lightness (Land & McCann, 1971). The visual system pro-
cesses information during the transmission of visual informa-
tion, and retinex algorithms aim to reveal essential character-
istics of objects by accounting for the intensity and uneven-
ness of light (Wang et al., 2020). These algorithms include single-
scale retinex (Jobson et al., 1997), retinex algorithm with color
restoration (MSRCR; Rahman et al., 1997), and MSRCP (Petro et
al., 2014). Another approach to low-light image enhancement
is the use of Dehaze algorithms (He et al., 2010; Yang & Sun,
2018). These algorithms work by removing the effects of haze,
and researchers found that low-light image enhancement is sim-
ilar to the haze removal process because inverted low-light im-
ages can resemble images in hazy lighting conditions (Dong et
al., 2011). As a result, algorithms developed for hazy conditions
have been adapted and applied to low-light images with promising
results.
Machine learning algorithms are gaining attention for low-light
image enhancement. For instance, zero-reference deep curve es-
timation (Zero-DCE) is a lightweight deep network that estimates
pixel-wise and high-order curves to adjust the dynamic range of
an image. Zero-DCE is versatile and trains and predicts quickly on
diverse lighting conditions (Guo et al., 2020). A SNR-aware frame-
work employs short- and long-range operations to enhance im-
ages dynamically in pixel-level (Xu et al., 2022b). Moreover, Enlight-
enGAN is an unsupervised generative adversarial network that
trains without paired low- and normal-light image sets. It uses
extracted input information to regularize unpaired training and
performs well in terms of visual quality and generalization on dif-
ferent real-world images (Jiang et al., 2021). Similarly, an unsuper-
vised decomposition and correction network that does not depend
on paired data for training was proposed by Jiang et al. (2022). The
network has three sub-networks that handle image decomposi-
tion, illumination correction, and noise removal, respectively. In
addition, a self-calibrated illumination learning framework was
presented to balance efficiency and accuracy for low-light data
enhancement while considering flexibility and robustness (Ma et
al., 2022).
Although existing algorithms and methodologies have been
analyzed and compared for their performance on benchmark
datasets by Kim (2022), techniques for enhancing low-light images
in construction environments like tunnels are rare. One study
adopted traditional computer vision algorithms to enhance tun-
nel low-light images for the detection of cracks (Biswas et al., 2021)
but not PPE. Another study observed the low-light situation on
outdoor construction sites at night, but no further technique was
applied to ease the illumination effects (Fang et al., 2018a). Addi-
tionally, Zeng et al. (2021) applied CLAHE for data enhancement
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175 | 1161

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Figure 2: Improved YOLOX approach. The CLAHE algorithm is used for enhancing low-light images. The YOLOX architecture is improved with extra
ConvNeXt modules and a fourth YOLOX head for multiscale PPE object detection.

for detecting outdoor equipment, but it lacked comprehensive tiscale PPE instances on tunnel construction sites, (ii) construct
experiment analysis to explain the selection of this augmenta- a novel dataset for tunnel low-light multiscale instance scenario,
tion algorithm. Moreover, the study’s outdoor environment sce- and (iii) comprehensively compare low-light algorithms and select
nario differed from the underground tunnel construction site. a suitable one for enhancing tunnel construction images.

2.3. Research gaps and objectives

Previous studies on using deep learning for PPE detection have
shown great performance on outdoor constructions. However,
there is still a lack of developing suitable models and tools that
can be applied to tunnel construction sites, where lighting con-
ditions are different from outdoor construction sites, and there
are many small-sized instances captured in the images. Specif-
ically, there are three gaps that need to be addressed: (i) there
are few studies that address the difficulty of detecting low-light
and small PPE objects on underground construction sites; (ii) there
are no suitable datasets available for low-light multiscale PPE ob-
jects; and (iii) there is a lack of a comprehensive and quantitative
comparison of low-light data enhancement algorithms under tun-
nel construction conditions.
Therefore, the objectives of this research are to (i) propose a
deep learning pipeline designed for detecting low-light and mul-
3. Improved YOLOX Approach
PPE detection in underground construction sites faces challenges
due to low-light conditions and multiscale PPE instances. In this
study, we adopt a data enhancement algorithm to improve low-
light images. We conduct a series of experiments to analyze
different augmentation algorithms from both computer vision
and deep learning approaches in Section 5.1, ultimately select-
ing CLAHE for enhancing tunnel images. Additionally, to im-
prove small instance detection performance, we modify the orig-
inal YOLOX architecture by adding a ConvNeXt block into the
backbone and the fourth YOLO prediction head (Section 3.1). In
summary, the improved YOLOX approach first uses CLAHE to en-
hance low-light images and then applies the modified YOLOX ar-
chitecture to predict multiscale instances, including person, hel-
met, and vest classes, as depicted in Fig. 2.
1162 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection
3.1. Modified YOLOX architecture
3.1.1. Overview of YOLOX
As an early anchor-free detector, YOLOv1 employs fully connected
neural network layers to directly predict bounding boxes on top
of the feature extractor. It boasts fast speeds but has a consid-
erable number of localization errors and a relatively low recall
rate (Redmon et al., 2016; Tan et al., 2021b). To address these is-
sues, anchor mechanisms from models like faster R-CNN were
introduced to YOLOv2 (Redmon & Farhadi, 2017). Anchors are pre-
defined boxes with common object shapes that guide the predic-
tion process. Anchor-based models learn to adjust anchor shapes
to fit predicted objects. Experiments in YOLOv2 demonstrated
that introducing the anchor mechanism improved the mAP by
4.8% (table 2 in Redmon & Farhadi 2017). However, using anchors
necessitates determining a set of optimal parameters, which are
less generalized and increase detection head complexity (Ge et al.,
2021).
As a new member of the YOLO family, YOLOX adopts an anchor-
free approach to predict bounding boxes directly from the head
(Ge et al., 2021). YOLOX reduces the predictions for each location
from three to one and predicts position values directly. In com-
parison to previous anchor-based YOLO models, this anchor-free
approach reduces the number of required parameters for anchors
that need heuristic tuning and training tricks. As a result, the
training and decoding phases are significantly simpler (Ge et al.,
2021). Experiments showed that the performance of average preci-
sion (AP) increased by 0.9% with the new anchor-free mechanism
(table 2 in Ge et al. 2021). Consequently, detection head complexity
in YOLOX is substantially reduced, and the model is more gener-
alized with better performance.
Although both YOLOv1 and YOLOX are anchor-free approaches,
YOLOX outperforms YOLOv1 after adopting many other practical
training techniques. Firstly, YOLOX adopts feature pyramid net-
works (Lin et al., 2017), which extract features from input images
at different scales, similar to a pyramid (Lin et al., 2017). The multi-
scale feature extraction guides the anchor-free approaches to pre-
dict instances of varying sizes. Another technique, focal loss, ad-
dresses the training imbalance of foreground-background classes
in one-stage detectors by reshaping the standard cross entropy
loss such that it down-weights the loss assigned to well-classified
examples (Lin et al., 2017c).
Another enhancement in YOLOX is the decoupled head. From
YOLOv3 to YOLOv5, the detection head had only one branch to
classify the class and regress the locations simultaneously; lead-
ing to conflicts and negatively impacting the training process
(Song et al., 2020). Moreover, analytical experiments demonstrated
that using a decoupled head, which separates a coupled head into
different components, could improve convergence speed and ac-
curacy (Ge et al., 2021). Based on these findings, YOLOX was de-
signed with a decoupled head that includes a 1 – 1 convolutional
layer to reduce the feature channel and two 3 – 3 convolutional
layers for classification and regression tasks, respectively. Addi-
tionally, YOLOX incorporates Mosaic (Bochkovskiy et al., 2020) and
MixUp (Zhang et al., 2017) into its augmentation strategies. Other
techniques, such as multiple positives and SimOTA, were also
adopted to enhance performance.
3.1.2. ConvNeXt for deep feature extraction
Recently, vision transformers (ViTs) have outperformed tradi-
tional ConvNets as state-of-the-art image classification models
(Dosovitskiy et al., 2020), particularly when large models and
datasets are considered (Liu et al., 2022). ConvNeXt was proposed
to explore the architectural differences between ConvNets and
ViTs and to test the limits of a pure ConvNet. It incorporates in-
verted bottlenecks and large convolution kernels (Sandler et al.,
2018), replaces ReLU with GELU (Glorot et al., 2011; Hendrycks &
Gimpel, 2016), minimizes the use of activation functions and nor-
malization layers, and substitutes BN (Ioffe & Szegedy, 2015) with
LN (Ba et al., 2016). Additionally, it employs a grouped convolution
for the 3 – 3 convolutional layer in a bottleneck block to reduce
the FLOPs. Despite being lighter, the network expands its width to
achieve higher capacity, and experiments have demonstrated that
ConvNeXt outperforms ConvNet in terms of performance.
Moreover, researchers have improved their models by incorpo-
rating ConvNeXt into the backbone to enhance feature extraction.
Such designs have been implemented in various fields, including
medicine (Hassanien et al., 2022; Li et al., 2022), for tasks such as
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image segmentation (Karacan & Yücebas, 2022), classification, ob-
ject detection (Zhang et al., 2022a), and visual tracking (Xu et al.,
2022a). In summary, ConvNeXt’s architecture has proven efficient
in feature extraction, but it has not yet been applied to PPE detec-
tion.
In the original YOLOX network, the DarkNet is used as the
backbone. To enhance visual feature extraction, we opt for the
lightweight and efficient ConvNeXt as an addition to the original
network. In the improved YOLOX, we incorporate three ConvNeXt
blocks immediately after the basic backbone to boost the model’s
feature extraction capacity. Each ConvNeXt block replaces ReLU
with GELU and employs LN instead of BN. The complete archi-
tecture is depicted in Fig. 2. Although the addition of ConvNeXt
may slightly increase storage requirements and inference time, it
can contribute to more effective feature extraction, which, in turn,
aids multiscale object prediction.
3.1.3. Fourth YOLOX head for small object prediction
With the decoupled head, YOLOX improves the capacity for pre-
dicting bounding boxes and classes separately with better perfor-
mance. However, it does not directly address the small object de-
tection problem, which is crucial for improving PPE detection in
tunnel construction sites. In the current YOLOX network, down-
sampling layers used for feature extraction may inadvertently
eliminate small object features. For example, an 8 × 8 pixel object
becomes a single point in the feature map after down-sampling
three times, and even smaller objects simply vanish during the
process.
To enhance our model’s performance for small objects, we in-
troduce an extra prediction head connected to the CspLayer (160,
160, 128), as illustrated in Fig. 2. This additional prediction head
results in a larger feature map and retains more small object fea-
tures that might be overlooked in the previous network for sub-
sequent processing. However, adding more prediction heads (e.g.,
a fifth one) to the backbone’s shallow part may increase the in-
put size, requiring more computational power. Moreover, it would
contain little semantic information due to insufficient feature ex-
traction. Thus, the addition of a fourth prediction head repre-
sents a balanced trade-off decision (Zeng et al., 2021; Zhu et al.,
2021). The modified YOLOX architecture is presented in Fig. 3.
3.2. Metrics for performance evaluation
In order to evaluate the correctness of our model for general
classes, we selected the following metrics: precision, recall, F1, AP,
and mAP. Precision measures the model’s ability to identify only
relevant objects. It is the ratio of true positives (correctly identified
objects) to the sum of true positives and false positives (irrelevant
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Figure 3: Modified YOLOX architecture.

objects identified as relevant): AP measures the overall correctness performance for a specific
class. It is calculated as the area under the precision-recall (PR)
TP curve and provides an average value of the model’s precision over
Precision = . (1)
TP + FP the entire range of recall levels. Higher AP values indicate better
performance.
Recall is the ratio of true positives to the sum of true positives
and false negatives:  1
AP = P(R )dR (4)
0
TP
Recall = . (2)
TP + FN where true positive TP is the number of correct predictions, false
positive FP is the number of wrong predictions, and false nega-
The F1 score takes into account both precision and recall, pro-
tive FN is the number of undetected but ground true instances.
viding a single metric that represents the model’s balanced ability
PR curves are plotted by calculating the precision and recall val-
for prediction:
ues of the accumulated TP or FP.
mAP is the average of the AP values for all classes in the dataset.
Precision × Recall
F1 = 2 × . (3) It gives an overall indication of the model’s performance across
Precision + Recall
1164 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection

multiple object classes. A higher mAP value indicates better de-

tection performance across all classes.


AP(class )
mAP = (5)
n
where AP(class) is the AP when considering classes (e.g., AP for
helmet) and n is the number of classes.
In this study, the effects of the network adjustment and data
enhancement algorithms are necessary to analyze quantitatively,
helping us understand the performance of the selected strate-
gies. However, the standard performance evaluation criteria usu-
ally focus on general classes, and they cannot be used directly
to evaluate model performance in different light conditions and
object sizes. Therefore, we adjust the mAP calculation equation

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as follows:
 Figure 4: Diagrams of different size objects.
AP(class, light )
mAPlight = (6)
n
Table 1: Statistics of the sizes of PPE instances.
where AP(class, light) is the AP for a specific class under a specific
lighting condition, such as the low-light helmet class, and mAPlight
Dataset
is the mAP that considers both classes and lighting conditions. Class Size
Train Validation Test Total

AP(class, size ) Helmet Small 3503 353 424 4280
mAPsize = (7)
n Medium 1459 172 168 1799
Large 406 49 53 508
where AP(class, size) is the AP for a specific class under a specific
size, like a small helmet class. mAPsize is the mAP that considers Person Small 1037 134 158 1329
both classes and instance sizes. Medium 2411 232 280 2923
For efficiency, we adopt FPS as shown in equation (8): Large 2705 333 315 3353

Vest Small 962 88 155 1205

Nimage Medium 979 99 111 1189
F PS = (8)
Ttotal Large 672 86 77 835

where Nimage is the number of images and Ttotal is the processing

time by the model with the unit of seconds.
4. PPE Dark Dataset
While the majority of public PPE datasets focus on outdoor con-
struction sites, there are limited datasets that cover tunnel con-
struction sites. A novel dataset, PPE dark, was constructed by col-
lecting real tunnel construction background images with multi-
scale PPE instances. PPE dark contains 2371 images, of which 1041
are from tunnel construction sites (Fig. 1a) captured by mobile
devices, and 1330 regular outdoor images (Fig. 1b) token from the
CHV dataset (Wang et al., 2021). The PPE dark dataset contains not
only dark images but also those taken in normal lighting condi-
tions. This variety aligns with our objective of developing a model
that is applicable in both low- and normal-light conditions.
The PPE dark dataset includes three categories: helmet, vest,
and person. The vest and helmet represent essential protec-
tive equipment for workers, while the person category can be
combined with vest and helmet detection results to determine
whether workers are wearing the necessary PPE. All collected im-
ages were annotated using the graphical image annotation soft-
ware LabelImg (Tzutalin, 2015). To minimize manual errors, an
additional researcher verified each labeled image after the ini-
tial annotation. The labeling process adhered to VOC2011 annota-
tion guidelines (VOC, 2016). A random 80% of the images were se-
lected as the training dataset (1904 images), 10% as the validation
dataset (238 images), and the remaining 10% as the test dataset
(238 images). The test dataset was exclusively used for evaluating
model performance after training.
4.1. Multiscale definition and statistics
In the computer vision domain, a common definition of instance
scales is derived from the COCO dataset (Lin et al., 2014). According
to this definition, a large instance has an area larger than 962 pixel
after resizing the image to 640 × 480 pixel, while a small instance’s
area is less than 322 pixel. Consequently, a medium instance’s
area falls between 322 pixel and 962 pixel. Although the COCO
dataset provides a generally accepted definition, the image size in
our PPE dark dataset is larger, at 640 × 640 pixel. Therefore, we
cannot directly apply the scale threshold values from the COCO
dataset.
The key to dividing sizes is the area percentage of the instance
relative to the whole image. With this in mind, we recalculated the
scale threshold values for the PPE dark dataset. Specifically, the
occupation percentage of a small instance in the COCO dataset
is less than 322 ÷(640 × 480) = 0.003 3333. When applied to the
PPE dark dataset, the threshold for small instances should be less
than 0.003 3333 × (640 × 640) = 37 × 37 pixel. Similarly, a large
instance in the PPE dark dataset should be larger than 1112 pixel
(962 ÷(640 × 480) × (640 × 640)). Ultimately, a medium instance
falls between these two thresholds. Figure 4 displays examples of
different scale instances in the PPE dark dataset.
Table 1 provides statistics for different sizes of instances in the
PPE dark dataset. For the helmet class, small instances account for
65%, constituting the majority. Only 8% of the helmets are consid-
ered large, with the remaining 27% categorized as medium. This
demonstrates that most helmet instances are small, and the dis-
tribution is uneven. For the person class, both medium and large
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175 | 1165

Table 2: Statistics of PPE instances under different light

conditions.

Dataset
Class Light condition
Train Validation Test Total

Helmet Low 2463 253 333 3049

Normal 2905 321 312 3538
Person Low 2952 353 413 3718
Normal 3201 346 340 3887
Vest Low 1191 120 207 1518
Normal 1422 153 136 1711

Figure 5: Statistics of the PPE dark dataset.

instances comprise around 40% each, while only 17% of person

instances are small. Additionally, the vest class consists of 40%

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small and 40% medium instances, with only a few large ones. In
general, a total of 6814 small objects make up 40% of the multi-
scale instances.
4.2. Low-light instances
From a human perspective, there is a clear visual difference be-
tween tunnel construction sites and outdoor normal-light con-
struction environments, as illustrated in Fig. 1. With the excep-
tion of entrances, tunnel construction sites receive minimal natu-
ral light, relying primarily on artificial illumination, which results
in low-light conditions. Therefore, in the PPE dark dataset, all im-
ages collected from tunnel construction sites are classified as low-
light, while all images from outdoor construction environments
are considered normal-light. Table 5 reveals a 15% to 20% AP dif-
ference between low- and normal-light detection. This significant
gap further supports the validity of the rule for determining light
conditions.
Table 2 calculates the number of instances under different light
conditions. For all three classes, the instances from the two light-
ing conditions are nearly equal. In total, the PPE dark dataset com-
prises 8285 low-light instances captured from tunnels and 9136
instances in normal conditions. Instances from different lighting
conditions are evenly distributed in the PPE dark dataset, ensur-
ing that the trained model is robust enough for application across
a wide range of lighting environments.
4.3. Statistics summary
The statistics, taking into account classes, sizes, and lighting con-
ditions, are displayed in Fig. 5. The numbers of helmets and peo-
ple are 6587 and 7605, respectively, while the number of vests is
3229, roughly half that of helmets or people. This result highlights
that most workers wear helmets, but only some wear safety vests.
When considering lighting conditions and sizes together, most
large instances are collected from outdoors, and most small in-
stances come from low-light tunnel construction sites. In sum-
mary, the dataset includes 6814 small instances, representing
40% of the multiscale instances, and 8285 low-light instances, ac-
counting for 48% of the light conditions. The statistical results em-
phasize the difficulties in detecting small and low-light objects in
tunnel construction sites.
5. Experiment and Results
Thirteen experiments were conducted to evaluate the improved
performance in detecting multiscale and low-light objects, as de-
tailed in Table 3. Experiments 2–9 tested low-light enhancement
algorithms with different mechanisms. Experiments 2, 3, and 4
utilized pure computer vision algorithms, while 5 and 6 were deep
learning-based. Experiments 7, 8, and 9 employed combinations of
computer vision and deep learning algorithms. Furthermore, Ex-
periments 10–12 assessed the modifications to the YOLOX archi-
tecture, including ConvNeXt, the fourth YOLOX head, and both.
Experiment 1 served as a baseline, testing the original YOLOX
model, and Experiment 13 showcased the performance when im-
plementing all strategies.
Experiments were conducted on a cloud server equipped with
two RTX A4000 graphics cards (16 GB of memory per card) and
four AMD 7502 processors. PyTorch (version 1.11) with CUDA (ver-
sion 11.3) was selected as the training platform. As mentioned,

Table 3: Experiment plan.

No. Model Data augmentation Architecture modification Goals

1 YOLOX Baseline
2 YOLOX CLAHE Low-light enhancement
3 YOLOX Dehaze
4 YOLOX MSRCP
5 YOLOX Zero-DCE
6 YOLOX EnlightenGAN
7 YOLOX Dehaze + CLAHE
8 YOLOX Zero-DCE + CLAHE
9 YOLOX EnlightenGAN + CLAHE

10 YOLOX ConvNeXt Multiscale detection

11 YOLOX Fourth head
12 YOLOX ConvNeXt + Fourth head

13 YOLOX CLAHE ConvNeXt + Fourth head All strategies

1166 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection
Table 4: Hyperparameters for training experiments.
Parameters Search values Freeze training Unfreeze training
Batch size 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 8 4
Learning rate 10x , x ∈ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] 103 104
80% of the data was used for training, 10% for validation, and 10%
for testing. The test dataset was solely employed for performance
evaluation. Each training session consisted of a freezing train-
ing phase followed by an unfreezing phase. The freezing training
loaded a pre-trained weight file without changing parameters in
the backbone. During the unfreezing phase, all parameters across
the entire model could be adjusted according to the loss. Except
for training epochs, all experiments adopted the same hyperpa-
rameters, with the search process outlined in Table 4.
Loading a weight that has been trained on large public datasets
is also known as transfer learning, which can enable the model
to quickly obtain the proper training direction. During train-
ing, the weight file with the lowest loss value from the valida-
tion dataset was retained and used to test the model perfor-
mance. Experiments involving YOLOX architecture modifications
had larger freezing and unfreezing epochs because the adjusted
parts lacked pre-trained weights, necessitating a longer training
period to achieve the desired result. Consequently, the first nine
experiments had 75 epochs each for the freezing and unfreez-
ing phases, while Experiments 10–13 had 100 epochs for each
phase.
Figure 6 illustrates the freezing–unfreezing training process by
displaying the training loss, validation loss, and validation mAP.
In both experiments, the loss curves for the training and valida-
tion datasets decrease as the number of epochs increases. A no-
ticeable fluctuation occurs when transitioning from the freezing
to the unfreezing phase, but the trend resumes a downward and
smooth direction. The loss and mAP curves provide insights into
the training stages.
5.1. Results of low-light enhancement
algorithms
In this section, the performance of low-light data enhancement
algorithms is compared both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Three traditional computer vision algorithms (CLAHE, Dehaze,
Figure 6: Training loss curves.
and MSRCP), two deep learning algorithms (EnlightenGAN and
Zero-DCE), and three combinations (CLAHE with Dehaze, Zero-
DCE, and EnlightenGAN, respectively) are selected for comparison.
The enhanced images are presented in Fig. 7.
According to qualitative observations, the images after De-
haze were similar to the originals. Images from CLAHE were
brighter and showed more details than the originals, e.g., pipes in
the second column images. In addition, the images from MSRCP
were more luminous when compared with the other two com-
puter vision algorithms. For example, the ground in the fourth-
column images was fully illuminated without any shadows, while
their colors were distorted from subjective observations. Images
from the two deep learning-based algorithms were much brighter
than the originals. However, the Zero-DCE images became blur-
rier and grayer. Images from EnlightenGAN were sharper than the
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others, with visible shadow edges. The last three combinations
with CLAHE performed similarly to the single ones.
Table 5 lists the quantitative correctness of the algorithms.
For a single algorithm, CLAHE had the highest mAP (84.38%),
an additional 1.13% compared with the benchmark YOLOX
model, which also owned the highest AP of the low-light hel-
met (80.98%). The mAP dropped slightly by adopting MSPCR
(−0.22%) and EnlightenGAN (−0.34%). For the combinations,
the EnlightenGAN and CLAHE yielded the best mAP (84.57%)
and had the three highest APs. On the other hand, the
AP for low-light classes was between 65% and 82%, while
the normal classes’ APs were much higher at around 90%.
Even after adopting the augmentation techniques, the gap be-
tween different lighting conditions cannot be ignored. The re-
sults illustrated that the applied augmentation can raise the
detection performance in low-light conditions, while room for fur-
ther improvements remains.
Table 5 lists the quantitative correctness of the algorithms. For
a single algorithm, CLAHE had the highest mAP (84.38%), 1.13%
higher compared with the benchmark YOLOX model, which also
had the highest AP of the low-light helmet (80.98%). The mAP
dropped slightly by adopting MSRCP (−0.22%) and EnlightenGAN
(−0.34%). For the combinations, EnlightenGAN and CLAHE yielded
the best mAP (84.57%) and had the three highest APs. On the
other hand, the AP for low-light classes was between 65% and
82%, while normal light classes’ APs were much higher at around
90%. Even after adopting the augmentation techniques, the gap
between different lighting conditions cannot be ignored. The re-
sults illustrated that the applied augmentation can raise the
 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175 | 1167

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Figure 7: Enhanced images by different algorithms and their combinations. The green ones are original images. Orange ones are computer vision
algorithms. Blue ones are deep learning algorithms. Purple ones are combinations.
1168 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection

Table 5: Correctness of low-light data enhancement algorithms.

AP
Category Algorithm mAPlight
Helmet, LL Helmet, NL Person, LL Person, NL Vest, LL Vest, NL

Benchmark None 83.42% 78.77% 92.35% 80.14% 92.58% 66.25% 90.43%

Computer vision CLAHE 84.38% 80.98% 94.90% 81.28% 92.18% 70.28% 86.68%
Dehaze 84.28% 77.98% 94.93% 81.28% 91.94% 69.95% 89.59%
MSRCP 83.20% 78.24% 94.29% 80.38% 91.65% 66.31% 88.31%

Deep learning Zero-DCE 83.33% 77.63% 93.13% 81.41% 92.52% 68.46% 86.81%
EnlightenGAN 83.08% 80.08% 94.33% 80.31% 90.90% 63.44% 89.40%

Combination Dehaze + CLAHE 83.83% 77.91% 94.57% 81.62% 93.34% 64.66% 90.88%
Zero-DCE + CLAHE 83.95% 79.55% 94.44% 81.78% 91.63% 67.15% 89.12%
EnlightenGAN + CLAHE 84.57% 79.20% 93.81% 81.96% 93.34% 67.19% 91.90%

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Note. LL means low-light; NL means normal-light.

Table 6: Speed of low-light data enhancement algorithms. the second-best performance when compared with all combina-
tions, only 0.19 points less than that of the best performing com-
Algorithm Process time (s)a FPS Platform bination (EnlightenGAN+CLAHE). This difference can be ignored
especially given that CLAHE would be 11 times faster than the
CLAHE 7.21 33.0 CPU
Dehaze 1242.40 0.2 CPU combination with only CPU computation. Based on its high cor-
MSRCP 3948.33 0.1 CPU rectness and efficient processing speed, we selected the CLAHE
algorithm as the low-light data enhancement technique for this
Zero-DCE 2.10 113.5 GPU
study.
EnlightenGAN 73.27 3.2 GPU

Dehaze + CLAHE 1249.65 0.2 CPU

Zero-DCE + CLAHE 9.31 25.6
EnlightenGAN + CLAHE 80.53 3.0
Note.
a
Processed on the test dataset, containing 238 images.
detection performance in low-light conditions, while room for fur-
ther improvements remains.
The processing speed for each algorithm is presented in
Table 6. The three computer vision algorithms only used CPUs,
and the deep learning algorithms were placed on the GPU plat-
form. Among the CPU-based algorithms, CLAHE had the fastest
speed at 33 FPS, indicating that it could process 33 images per
second. The other two computer vision algorithms were slower,
less than 1 FPS. For the deep learning algorithms, Zero-DCE held a
faster speed (113.5 FPS) because of its light architecture network
(Guo et al., 2020). The combination of EnlightenGAN and CLAHE
achieved an average speed of 3 FPS, which was 11 times slower
than adopting the single CLAHE.
The single CLAHE had a more balanced performance. Compar-
ing it to the other single algorithms, CLAHE had the best mAP and
GPU + CPU
5.2. Results of architecture modification for
GPU + CPU multiscale detection
The results of all explored architecture modifications are pre-
sented in Table 7. Specifically, the No. 1 and No. 2 modifications
demonstrate that the ConvNeXt and the fourth head can improve
the mAPsize to 79.29% (+1.86%) and 78.43% (+1%), respectively. The
adoption of both strategies achieved the best mAPsize at 79.84%,
which is 2.41% higher than that of the original YOLOX model. This
combination also exhibited the highest APs for medium helmets
(92.99%), small helmets (81.87%), and small vests (61.96%).
Additionally, we explored three other strategies that did not
contribute positively to the performance. The No. 4 modifica-
tion inserted the ConvNeXt module into the beginning of each
YOLO head to extract more features. However, the results showed
that this modification decreased the mAPsize to 76.00%, a de-
cline of 1.43%. Moreover, inspired by Wu et al. (2021), we split the
YOLO head into three branches for predicting the type of objects,
locations, and certainties, respectively. The final performance de-
creased by 1.84%. Another modification, No. 6, replaced the entire
YOLOX backbone with ConvNeXt modules, resulting in an mAPsize
of 65.82%, a decrease of 11.61%.

Table 7: Correctness of architecture modifications.

AP
No. Modification mAPsize
Helmet, L Helmet, M Helmet, S Person, L Person, M Person, S Vest, L Vest, M Vest, S

0 YOLOX 77.43% 86.87% 91.04% 75.12% 89.57% 82.00% 53.94% 89.62% 81.27% 47.45%
1 +ConvNeXt 79.29% (+1.86%) 90.73% 91.93% 79.69% 90.25% 84.27% 56.67% 86.54% 83.59% 49.98%
2 +Fourth head 78.43% (+1.00%) 86.38% 91.18% 80.29% 88.41% 81.40% 54.36% 90.22% 77.92% 55.67%
3 +ConvNeXt + Fourth head 79.84% (+2.41%) 88.27% 92.99% 81.87% 88.83% 80.64% 54.20% 87.67% 82.09% 61.96%

4 +Add ConvNeXt to YOLO head 76.00% (−1.43%) 90.71% 89.96% 72.93% 91.52% 82.87% 50.69% 86.98% 78.84% 39.51%
5 +Split YOLO Head 75.59% (−1.84%) 82.49% 88.32% 75.45% 91.37% 82.65% 50.93% 85.63% 80.28% 43.17%
6 +Replace backbone as ConvNext 65.82% (−11.61%) 84.11% 88.09% 60.71% 87.43% 65.14% 31.86% 80.76% 62.68% 31.56%

Note. L: Large; M: Medium; S: Small.

 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175
By adopting the effective strategies (ConvNeXt and the fourth
head), the performance of small object detection was also en-
hanced. Its AP for small helmets increased by 6.75% to 81.87%,
and its AP for small vests rose by 14.51%. The AP for small ob-
jects increased by an average of 7.17%. On the other hand, the
modifications slightly improved the performance for medium
and large-sized instances. This also indicates that the origi-
nal YOLOX already possesses the ability to detect medium and
large instances, and the modifications adopted in this study can
further improve the performance on small objects, providing
a more balanced and accurate capability for multiscale object
detection.
5.3. Results of the improved YOLOX approach
The results of the previous experiments revealed two key find-
ings. Firstly, CLAHE is a well-balanced algorithm for enhancing
images in low-light conditions. Secondly, using ConvNeXt and a
fourth head can significantly enhance detection performance for
multiscale objects. Based on these findings, we have developed an
improved YOLOX approach by incorporating all these strategies.
Figure 8 showcases detection examples from the improved
YOLOX approach. We have selected six examples that highlight
various detection challenges, such as multiscale objects in sam-
ple (a, c, and e), small objects in sample (b), and different gestures
in sample (c, e, and f). All of these images were captured from a
relatively far distance and under challenging lighting conditions.
However, the results show that the improved YOLOX is able to de-
tect PPE instances with multiple scales, low-light instances, differ-
ent gestures and locations.
While the improved YOLOX approach is robust, there are cer-
tain scenarios where it may struggle to detect objects. To illustrate
this, we have included three error samples in Fig. 8. For exam-
ple, in Fig. 8g, the worker’s helmet is not detected. This might be
caused that the worker is positioned far away from the camera
and the helmet is relatively small compared to the rest of the im-
age. Moreover, due to poor lighting conditions, the yellow helmet
appears to be grey like the background, making it difficult for the
model to detect. Similarly, in Fig. 8i, a worker is bending on the
ground wearing a black shirt, which blends into the background,
making it challenging for the model to detect. These examples
demonstrate that YOLOX may struggle in very complex scenarios
where the objects are very small, or their color is similar to the
background.
Table 8 presents the quantitative results for each strategy.
CLAHE improves overall performance by 0.87%, while ConvNeXt
and the fourth head increases the mAP by 1.34% and 2.01%, re-
spectively. By combining these two modifications, the mAP rises
by 3.34%. Furthermore, the improved YOLOX model, which incor-
porated CLAHE, ConvNeXt, and the fourth head, demonstrates the
performance with an mAP of 86.49%, an increase of 4.23% com-
pared to the original YOLOX model. The detection performance
in the improved YOLOX for each class is also relatively balanced.
For instance, it achieves the highest AP for helmets at 90.33%,
while maintaining performance above 82% for the person and
vest classes. Overall, the employed strategies effectively improve
the detection performance for PPE objects on tunnel construction
sites.
Regarding speed, the original YOLOX has the fastest inference
speed at 42.65 FPS. With the addition of data augmentation and ar-
chitecture improvements, the improved YOLOX model’s process-
ing speed drops to 22.13 FPS, slower than the original YOLOX. Real-
time detection is a relatively blurring concept. Researchers sug-
| 1169
gest that a detector with an FPS greater than 13 can be considered
real-time (Redmon & Angelova, 2015). Other researchers propose
that FPS above 30 should be regarded as real-time detection (Red-
mon et al., 2016; Tan et al., 2021a). FPS is also affected by hard-
ware, and the value could theoretically improve with more pow-
erful equipment. Although the improved YOLOX model is slower
than the original, its processing speed still meets the general re-
quirements for real-time detection. Furthermore, the speed could
increase with more advanced hardware if necessary.
Considering the trade-off between accuracy and speed, we be-
lieve that prioritizing correctness is more crucial, especially when
the model’s application is related to safety concerns. The higher
the model’s ability to predict objects accurately, the greater the
chances of preventing worker injuries or even fatalities. Currently,
the improved YOLOX has the highest correctness and achieves the
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general real-time performance. And if faster speed is necessary,
more advanced hardware can be employed during implementa-
tion to solve this problem. Therefore, we think the strategies of
CLAHE data enhancement, ConvNeXt feature extraction, and the
fourth head for multiscale object prediction are practical and nec-
essary.
Table 9 presents another performance comparison between the
original model and the improved YOLOX. As mentioned earlier,
precision is the fraction of relevant instances among all predic-
tions, and recall is the fraction of relevant instances that were
retrieved. F1 can evaluate the model’s robustness by considering
both recall and precision. From Table 9, the improved YOLOX had
a better performance under various criteria. Therefore, the im-
proved YOLOX was more accurate and robust in predicting in-
stances than the original YOLOX model.
5.4. Comparison with the state-of-the-art object
detection models
In order to evaluate the contributions of the improved YOLOX
model, we conducted a comprehensive comparison with state-
of-the-art object detection models, including YOLOv3x, YOLOv4x,
YOLOv7x, SSD, faster R-CNN, and the original YOLOX with an X
size version. For the YOLOv3x and YOLOv4x models, the image
size of the dataset was adjusted to 416 × 416 and 640 × 640 pixels,
respectively. For the faster R-CNN models, we replaced the back-
bones with ResNet and VGG. The training process for the selected
comparison models consisted of two stages: a freezing stage with
75 epochs and an unfreezing stage with 75 epochs. Due to the
more complex architecture of the improved YOLOX, we increased
the training process to 100 freezing and 100 unfreezing epochs.
The comparison results are displayed in Table 10. Overall, the
enhanced YOLOX model achieved the highest individual AP for
each class and the highest mAP of 86.49% in general, which fur-
ther validates its detection capabilities. Additionally, the detection
performance of the YOLO series models was enhanced by increas-
ing the size of the training images. For instance, when the training
image size was increased from 416 × 416 to 640 × 640 pixels, the
mAP of YOLOv4 improved from 62% to 72%. We also selected the
YOLOv7x whose mAP was 1.9% lower compared to the enhanced
YOLOX. For the faster R-CNN series models, altering the backbone
did not significantly impact performance. Furthermore, the SSD
model performed the worst, achieving only an mAP of 50.21%.
In terms of efficiency, the YOLOv7x model reached the fastest
speed with 55 FPS. The improved YOLOX operated at a speed of 22
FPS, which was slower than both the original YOLOX (X) and the
YOLOv7x but faster than all other detectors. Still, the processing
speed of the improved YOLOX met the requirements for real-time
1170 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection

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Figure 8: Detection examples from the improved YOLOX approach.

 Journal of Computational Design and Engineering, 2023, 10(3), 1158–1175 | 1171

Table 8: Effects of adopted strategies.

AP
Models mAP FPS
Helmet Person Vest

YOLOX 82.26% 85.31% 85.82% 75.65% 42.65

+CLAHE 83.13% 87.74% 86.23% 75.41% 33.00
+ConvNeXt 83.60% 87.89% 87.57% 75.35% 32.19
+4 heads 84.27% 88.61% 85.23% 78.98% 30.72
+ConvNeXt+4 heads 85.60% 89.39% 86.01% 81.40% 27.61
+CLAHE + ConvNeXt + 4 head 86.49% 90.33% 87.03% 82.12% 22.13
(Improved YOLOX approach)

Table 9: Performance comparison between YOLOX and the im- However, this study also faces limitations. There is potential for
proved YOLOX. improvement in detecting small person and small vest classes,

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which could be caused by the scarcity of corresponding instances
Model Helmet Person Vest
in the dataset. Collecting more relevant images for the dataset
F1 YOLOX 0.83 0.83 0.72 could alleviate this issue. Secondly, this study is conducted in
Improved YOLOX 0.86 0.84 0.8 a laboratory setting. Although the experiments demonstrate the
performance of the proposed approach, numerous engineering
Recall YOLOX 74.57% 75.43% 60.93%
challenges may arise when implementing it on real construction
Improved YOLOX 78.14% 79.28% 72.30%
sites. Possible implementation factors are discussed in Section 6.2.
Precision YOLOX 94.13% 93.42% 89.32%
Improved YOLOX 94.92% 89.64% 90.18%
6.2. Implementation on practice
AP YOLOX 85.31% 85.82% 75.65% The improved YOLOX approach demonstrates accurate detection
Improved YOLOX 90.33% 87.03% 82.12% capabilities for low-light and multiscale objects with real-time
processing speed. However, the experiments are conducted in lab-
oratories, and several practical factors should be considered when
processing. The speed was affected to the more complex architec- implementing the approach in real-world settings.
ture and the inclusion of additional low-light data enhancement First, we should consider the number and location of light
algorithms. Moreover, the enhanced YOLOX has relatively more sources. Although the lighting conditions in tunnel environments
parameters than other YOLO models due to the extra modifica- cannot be compared to outdoor construction sites with natural
tions made to the architecture. light, it is essential to deploy light sources evenly, ensuring that
When considering the trade-off between accuracy and speed, all areas are well-lit and that the illumination is neither too strong
the priority for detecting PPE on tunnel construction sites is cor- nor too weak at any location. Proper lighting is critical to improve
rectness. Greater prediction accuracy can lead to a higher like- the quality of images and contribute to more accurate detection
lihood of preventing worker injuries. Currently, the improved performance.
YOLOX outperforms all other selected state-of-the-art models in Second, camera modules should be placed strategically to min-
terms of overall accuracy and has a significantly stronger ability imize their impact on nearby operations. The strategic placement
to detect small objects compared to the original YOLOX. Although of cameras is crucial for maximizing coverage while minimizing
it is not the fastest detection model, its processing speed meets any potential obstructions or disruptions to construction activi-
the real-time threshold. Consequently, we maintain the position ties. Furthermore, integrating the camera modules with existing
that our improved YOLOX is a suitable choice for PPE detection on infrastructure can reduce installation costs and streamline sys-
tunnel construction sites, as it highest correctness and real-time tem deployment.
processing speed. Additionally, establishing a monitoring system should be cost-
effective. Factors affecting the final costs include the cloud or local
platforms, the number of camera modules, and the GPU equip-
6. Discussion ment. If the entire system is hosted on the cloud, extra processes
6.1. Strength and weakness and equipment are required to upload images captured by the
cameras and to receive results from the cloud. Alternatively, an
This study has several strengths. Firstly, the improved YOLOX ap-
on-site processing module can be deployed to directly connect
proach demonstrates the ability to accurately detect low-light
to the camera modules. The inference speed should be adjusted
and multiscale objects on tunnel construction sites. Experiments
based on the actual requirement. Usually a faster speed requires
show that it achieves an mAP of 86.94%, which is 4.23% higher
more powerful hardware, potentially increasing costs.
than the original YOLOX and outperforms all selected state-of-
the-art deep learning models. Secondly, the improved YOLOX ap-
proach is a real-time solution, processing 22 images per second 6.3. Future research directions
while maintaining a balanced performance in terms of both ac- In the future, the proposed approach can be further expanded by
curacy and efficiency. Thirdly, this study introduces the first low- incorporating additional techniques to analyze activities, deter-
light and small PPE dataset, consisting of 1041 low-light real tun- mine safety statuses, and explore effective alarm methods. Cur-
nel construction images and 1330 normal ones, with small objects rently, the model can output detection results for on-site workers.
accounting for 40% (6814 instances) and low-light objects consti- We can extend this by tracking workers’ movements and analyz-
tuting 48% (8285 instances). ing their ongoing activities (Nath et al., 2018). The type of activity
1172 | Improved YOLOX for low-light and small PPE detection

Table 10: Comparison with the state-of-the-art models.

AP
Model mAP FPS Params (M)
Helmet Person Vest

YOLOv3x (416)a 71.06% 72.24% 83.44% 57.50% 9.71 61.5

YOLOv3x (640) 76.53% 82.18% 85.28% 62.13% 7.96 61.5
YOLOv4x (416) 62.06% 68.37% 80.70% 37.10% 8.58 63.9
YOLOv4x (640) 71.59% 78.69% 86.01% 50.06% 7.59 63.9
YOLOv7x 84.50% 88.90% 86.50% 78.10% 55.00 71.3
SSD 50.21% 43.85% 67.05% 39.72% 7.09 23.9
Faster RCNN (ResNet) 60.79% 51.03% 77.34% 53.99% 6.68 28.3
Faster RCNN (VGG) 61.51% 51.69% 77.90% 54.94% 7.72 136.7
YOLOX (x) 82.26% 85.31% 85.82% 75.65% 42.65 99.1
Improved YOLOX 86.49% 90.33% 87.03% 82.12% 22.13 118.8

Note.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jcde/article/10/3/1158/7177527 by guest on 16 July 2023

a
The size of training images are 416 × 416.

could be related to the danger level, allowing the system to en-
hance monitoring of workers engaged in specific activities. The
activity information can also be used for management purposes,
such as analyzing working hours and providing further data for
managers to adjust tasks accordingly.
Moreover, we can organize prediction results as a scene graph
and apply automated hazard inference methods to alert workers if
they are in danger (Zhang et al., 2022b). This can also be achieved
by establishing constraint relationships within the scene graph,
such as distance constraints between workers and the tunnel face.
A separate mechanism can be employed to continuously collect
the latest information on workers’ positions and assess whether
their status violates these constraints. If any violations are de-
tected, a warning signal is sent correspondingly, helping to main-
tain worker safety and prevent accidents.
It is also essential to explore suitable alarm methods for work-
ers. Compared to outdoor construction sites, tunnel environments
are enclosed spaces filled with noise from large machines, making
it difficult to hear warnings clearly. Consequently, relying on au-
ditory alerts may not be effective. On the other hand, developing
a device that notifies workers through vibrations would require
them to wear the device, potentially adding extra burden. Investi-
gating appropriate alarm methods for tunnel workers is a practi-
cal future research direction to ensure their safety and well-being.
(iii) We provided a performance reference for low-light aug-
mentation, including eight different algorithms and com-
binations. CLAHE has a balanced performance with high
correctness and fast speed.
(iv) We constructed a novel low-light multiscale dataset, PPE
dark, with 8285 low-light instances and 6814 small in-
stances.
Expect that, we also proposed the definition for multiscale ob-
ject for specific image sizes, and constructed criteria for evaluat-
ing performance of correctness for different light conditions and
object sizes. We discussed the possible factors when implement-
ing in industry as well as the future research directions.
The most important contribution of this paper is the improved
YOLOX approach for detecting low-light and multiscale objects
with high accuracy and real-time processing speed. Additionally,
PPE dark is the first dataset in the construction domain focusing
on low-light and small objects. This study can inspire further re-
searcher on how to improve detection performance in similar sit-
uations, not limited to the construction industry.
Acknowledgments
This research received financial support from Hubei Provincial De-
partment of Transportation Science and Technology Project (2020-
186-2-5).

7. Conclusions
This paper proposes a solution for detecting PPE on underground
construction sites, which is challenging due to low-light condi-
tions and the presence of small objects. The proposed solution
includes a modified deep learning model and a novel dataset. The
main contribution and findings are listed as follows.
(i) We propose an improved YOLOX approach for detecting
low-light multiscale objects. We adjusted YOLOX archi-
tecture for deep feature extraction and multiscale object
prediction and adopted data augmentation method to en-
hance the image light conditions. The improved YOLOX ap-
proach owns the highest correctness compared to state-of-
the-art, and a real-time processing speed.
(ii) We validated that inserting the ConvNeXt module into the
YOLOX backbone and adding an extra prediction head can
improve the detection ability to small objects. Experiments
show that the AP of small classes has been increased by
7.17% on average.
Conflict of interest statement
None declared.
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Received: December 27, 2022. Revised: May 7, 2023. Accepted: May 11, 2023
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