Ensuring product quality and integrity is paramount in the rapidly evolving landscape of industrial manufacturing. Although effective to a certain degree, traditional quality control methods often fail to meet the demands for efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability in today’s fast-paced production environments. The advent of Deep Learning (DL) and Computer Vision (CV) technologies has opened new vistas for automated defect detection, promising to revolutionize the way industries approach quality control and inspection. This systematic review focuses on recent advancements in DL and CV applications for automated defect detection in manufacturing processes. It provides a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art techniques for detecting, classifying, and predicting defects, highlighting the significant strides made in addressing challenges such as varying lighting conditions, complex defect patterns, and the seamless integration of these technologies into existing manufacturing workflows. Through a critical analysis of current methodologies, this study identifies key areas of opportunity, outlines the challenges that persist and suggests directions for future research. This review synthesizes findings from a broad spectrum of industrial applications, offering insights into the potential of DL and CV to enhance quality control mechanisms. By charting the progress and pinpointing the gaps in current practices, this paper aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to leverage the benefits of DL and CV for improved product management and manufacturing excellence.

Addressing the global challenge of ensuring a consistent and abundant supply of fresh fruit, particularly in the context of fruit crops, is hindered by the prevalence of plant diseases. These diseases directly impact the quality of fruits, leading to a decline in overall agricultural production. Mango leaf diseases pose significant threats to global mango production, necessitating accurate and efficient classification techniques for timely disease management. Our study focuses on introducing MangoLeafXNet, a customized Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture specifically tailored for the classification of mango leaf diseases, along with a healthy class. Our proposed model comprises six layers optimized to capture intricate disease patterns, demonstrating superior performance compared with prevalent pre-trained models. The model is trained and evaluated on three publicly available datasets: MangoLeafBD (4000 images across 8 classes), MangoPest (16 pest classes including healthy leaves), and MLDID (3000 high-resolution images across 5 classes). Our model demonstrated exceptional classification performance, attaining 99.8% accuracy, 99.62% recall, 99.5% precision, and an F1-score of 99.56%. Further validation on the MangoPest dataset and the Mango Leaf Disease Identification Dataset (MLDID) resulted in accuracies of 96.31% and 96.33%, respectively, confirming the robustness and adaptability of MangoLeafXNet across different datasets. Additionally, we incorporate Explainable AI techniques, including GRAD-CAM, Saliency Map, and LIME to enhance the interpretability of our model. We deployed Gradio web interface to create an interactive interface that allows users to upload images of mango leaves and get real-time classification and validation results along with confidence scores. This contribution not only advances the state-of-the-art in mango leaf disease classification but also offers promising prospects for real-time disease diagnosis and precision agriculture applications, contributing to enhanced crop health monitoring and sustainable mango cultivation practices.

Lung cancer imaging plays a crucial role in early diagnosis and treatment, where machine learning and deep learning have significantly advanced the accuracy and efficiency of disease classification. This study introduces the Explainable and Lightweight Lung Cancer Net (XLLC-Net), a streamlined convolutional neural network designed for classifying lung cancer from histopathological images. Using the LC25000 dataset, which includes three lung cancer classes and two colon cancer classes, we focused solely on the three lung cancer classes for this study. XLLC-Net effectively discerns complex disease patterns within these classes. The model consists of four convolutional layers and contains merely 3 million parameters, considerably reducing its computational footprint compared to existing deep learning models. This compact architecture facilitates efficient training, completing each epoch in just 60 seconds. Remarkably, XLLC-Net achieves a classification accuracy of 99.62% ± 0.16%, with precision, recall, and F1 score of 99.33% ± 0.30%, 99.67% ± 0.30%, and 99.70% ± 0.30%, respectively. Furthermore, the integration of Explainable AI techniques, such as Saliency Map and GRAD-CAM, enhances the interpretability of the model, offering clear visual insights into its decision-making process. Our results underscore the potential of lightweight DL models in medical imaging, providing high accuracy and rapid training while ensuring model transparency and reliability.

Objectives: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains one of the most prevalent neurodegenerative conditions among older adults, underscoring the urgent need for accurate and ethically grounded early detection methods. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, particularly machine learning and deep learning models, show promise in leveraging neuroimaging biomarkers to support early diagnosis. However, significant challenges persist regarding model explainability, accountability, and responsible implementation in real-world healthcare settings. This study presents a generalized Responsible AI (RAI) framework composed of four core components—explainability, fairness, predictive performance, and uncertainty quantification—to address these challenges. Method: Using the TADPOLE neuroimaging dataset, we implemented a Feedforward Neural Network (FNN) within a unified Responsible AI (RAI) framework integrating explainability, fairness, predictive performance, and uncertainty quantification. Although Random Forest achieved slightly higher predictive accuracy (95%), the FNN was selected as the primary model because it better supports end-to-end uncertainty estimation through Monte Carlo Dropout, enabling more reliable clinical decision support. Results: The proposed framework demonstrated strong predictive performance (92% accuracy), improved fairness reflected by an equalized odds difference of 0.124, and progressively lower predictive entropy across training iterations, indicating enhanced confidence in predictions. The framework further enabled model transparency through explainability analyses and supported the identification of low-confidence predictions for potential clinical review. Conclusions: Our findings highlight not only the feasibility of integrating RAI principles into AD prediction pipelines but also the persistent challenges of applying such frameworks to real-world clinical data. This work contributes practical insights toward operationalizing Responsible AI in healthcare contexts.