Deep Learning Based Approach to Classify Saline Particles in Sea Water

• Main Authors: Mohammed Alshehri, Manoj Kumar, Akashdeep Bhardwaj, Shailendra Mishra, Jayadev Gyani
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
• Series: Water
• Subjects: classification; deep learning; convolutional neural networks; transfer learning; saline particles; salinity
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/9/1251

Water is an essential resource that facilitates the existence of human life forms. In recent years, the demand for the consumption of freshwater has substantially increased. Seawater contains a high concentration of salt particles and salinity, making it unfit for consumption and domestic use. Water treatment plants used to treat seawater are less efficient and reliable. Deep learning systems can prove to be efficient and highly accurate in analyzing salt particles in seawater with higher efficiency that can improve the performance of water treatment plants. Therefore, this work classified different concentrations of salt particles in water using convolutional neural networks with the implementation of transfer learning. Salt salinity concentration images were captured using a designed Raspberry Pi based model and these images were further used for training purposes. Moreover, a data augmentation technique was also employed for the state-of-the-art results. Finally, a deep learning neural network was used to classify saline particles of varied concentration range images. The experimental results show that the proposed approach exhibited superior outcomes by achieving an overall accuracy of 90% and f-score of 87% in classifying salt particles. The proposed model was also evaluated using other evaluation metrics such as precision, recall, and specificity, and showed robust results.