Aiming at the problem that the model of YOLOv4 algorithm has too many parameters and the detection effect of small targets is poor, this paper proposes an improved helmet fitting detection model based on YOLOv4 algorithm. Firstly, this model improves the detection accuracy of small targets by adding multi-scale prediction and improving the structure of PANet network. Then, the improved depth-separable convolution was used to replace the standard 3 × 3 convolution, which greatly reduced the model parameters without reducing the detection ability of the model. Finally, the k_means clustering algorithm is used to optimize the prior box. The model was tested on the self-made helmet dataset helmet_dataset. Experimental results show that compared with the safety helmet detection model based on Faster RCNN algorithm, the improved YOLOv4 algorithm has faster detection speed, higher detection accuracy and smaller number of model parameters. Compared with the original YOLOv4 model, the mAP of the improved YOLOv4 algorithm is increased by 0.49%, reaching 93.05%. The number of model parameters was reduced by about 58%, to about 105 MB. The model reasoning speed is 35 FPS. The improved YOLOv4 algorithm can meet the requirements of helmet wearing detection in multiple scenarios.
