Unsupervised Waste Classification By Dual-Encoder Contrastive Learning and Multi-Clustering Voting (DECMCV)

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Main Authors: Huang, Kui, Song, Mengke, Ba, Shuo, An, Ling, Liang, Huajie, Deng, Huanxi, Liu, Yang, Zhang, Zhenyu, Zhou, Chichun
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Huang, Kui
Song, Mengke
Ba, Shuo
An, Ling
Liang, Huajie
Deng, Huanxi
Liu, Yang
Zhang, Zhenyu
Zhou, Chichun
author_facet Huang, Kui
Song, Mengke
Ba, Shuo
An, Ling
Liang, Huajie
Deng, Huanxi
Liu, Yang
Zhang, Zhenyu
Zhou, Chichun
contents Waste classification is crucial for improving processing efficiency and reducing environmental pollution. Supervised deep learning methods are commonly used for automated waste classification, but they rely heavily on large labeled datasets, which are costly and inefficient to obtain. Real-world waste data often exhibit category and style biases, such as variations in camera angles, lighting conditions, and types of waste, which can impact the model's performance and generalization ability. Therefore, constructing a bias-free dataset is essential. Manual labeling is not only costly but also inefficient. While self-supervised learning helps address data scarcity, it still depends on some labeled data and generally results in lower accuracy compared to supervised methods. Unsupervised methods show potential in certain cases but typically do not perform as well as supervised models, highlighting the need for an efficient and cost-effective unsupervised approach. This study presents a novel unsupervised method, Dual-Encoder Contrastive Learning with Multi-Clustering Voting (DECMCV). The approach involves using a pre-trained ConvNeXt model for image encoding, leveraging VisionTransformer to generate positive samples, and applying a multi-clustering voting mechanism to address data labeling and domain shift issues. Experimental results demonstrate that DECMCV achieves classification accuracies of 93.78% and 98.29% on the TrashNet and Huawei Cloud datasets, respectively, outperforming or matching supervised models. On a real-world dataset of 4,169 waste images, only 50 labeled samples were needed to accurately label thousands, improving classification accuracy by 29.85% compared to supervised models. This method effectively addresses style differences, enhances model generalization, and contributes to the advancement of automated waste classification.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_02241
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unsupervised Waste Classification By Dual-Encoder Contrastive Learning and Multi-Clustering Voting (DECMCV)
Huang, Kui
Song, Mengke
Ba, Shuo
An, Ling
Liang, Huajie
Deng, Huanxi
Liu, Yang
Zhang, Zhenyu
Zhou, Chichun
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Waste classification is crucial for improving processing efficiency and reducing environmental pollution. Supervised deep learning methods are commonly used for automated waste classification, but they rely heavily on large labeled datasets, which are costly and inefficient to obtain. Real-world waste data often exhibit category and style biases, such as variations in camera angles, lighting conditions, and types of waste, which can impact the model's performance and generalization ability. Therefore, constructing a bias-free dataset is essential. Manual labeling is not only costly but also inefficient. While self-supervised learning helps address data scarcity, it still depends on some labeled data and generally results in lower accuracy compared to supervised methods. Unsupervised methods show potential in certain cases but typically do not perform as well as supervised models, highlighting the need for an efficient and cost-effective unsupervised approach. This study presents a novel unsupervised method, Dual-Encoder Contrastive Learning with Multi-Clustering Voting (DECMCV). The approach involves using a pre-trained ConvNeXt model for image encoding, leveraging VisionTransformer to generate positive samples, and applying a multi-clustering voting mechanism to address data labeling and domain shift issues. Experimental results demonstrate that DECMCV achieves classification accuracies of 93.78% and 98.29% on the TrashNet and Huawei Cloud datasets, respectively, outperforming or matching supervised models. On a real-world dataset of 4,169 waste images, only 50 labeled samples were needed to accurately label thousands, improving classification accuracy by 29.85% compared to supervised models. This method effectively addresses style differences, enhances model generalization, and contributes to the advancement of automated waste classification.
title Unsupervised Waste Classification By Dual-Encoder Contrastive Learning and Multi-Clustering Voting (DECMCV)
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02241