Cluster assignment of large and complex datasets is a crucial but challenging task in pattern recognition and computer vision. In this study, we explore the possibility of employing fuzzy clustering in a deep neural network framework. Thus, we present a novel evolutionary unsupervised learning representation model with iterative optimization. It implements the deep adaptive fuzzy clustering (DAFC) strategy that learns a convolutional neural network classifier from given only unlabeled data samples. DAFC consists of a deep feature quality-verifying model and a fuzzy clustering model, where deep feature representation learning loss function and embedded fuzzy clustering with the weighted adaptive entropy is implemented. We joint fuzzy clustering to the deep reconstruction model, in which fuzzy membership is utilized to represent a clear structure of deep cluster assignments and jointly optimize for the deep representation learning and clustering. Also, the joint model evaluates current clustering performance by inspecting whether the resampled data from estimated bottleneck space have consistent clustering properties to improve the deep clustering model progressively. Experiments on various datasets show that the proposed method obtains a substantially better performance for both reconstruction and clustering quality compared to the other state-of-the-art deep clustering methods, as demonstrated with the in-depth analysis in the extensive experiments.

This study presents a new target detection method which is named as circular targets feature detection framework based on a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN). The central proposition of this method uses the optimized DCNN architecture to detect the target and locate the position of the circle accurately in the image field of view. In this study, a Hough transform based on threshold processing (HTP) is embedded into the optimized DCNN architecture, which calculates the center positions and radius of all circles by training the circular samples for each detected rectangular frame. It can efficiently identify small circular target materials in the industry and screen out unqualified particles. The experimental results show that the circular boundary information can be obtained from the complex noise background images, thereby accurately determining the location of the circle. It has some advantages over only using a specific circular recognition algorithm. We proposed the new study on HTP-DCNN, which has extremely high accuracy in the field of machine vision positioning with circles for industrial applications.