CPLOYO: A pulmonary nodule detection model with multi-scale feature fusion and nonlinear feature learning

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology in pulmonary nodule detection significantly enhances the intelligence and real-time capabilities of the detection system. Currently, lung nodule detection primarily focuses on the identification of solid nodules, but different types of lung nodules correspond to various forms of lung cancer. Multi-type detection contributes to improving the overall lung cancer detection rate and enhancing the cure rate. To achieve high sensitivity in nodule detection, targeted improvements were made to the YOLOv8 model. Firstly, the C2f_RepViTCAMF module was introduced to augment the C2f module in the backbone, thereby enhancing detection accuracy for small lung nodules and achieving a lightweight model design. Secondly, the MSCAF module was incorporated to reconstruct the feature fusion section of the model, improving detection accuracy for lung nodules of varying scales. Furthermore, the KAN network was integrated into the model. By leveraging the KAN network’s powerful nonlinear feature learning capability, detection accuracy for small lung nodules was further improved, and the model’s generalization ability was enhanced. Tests conducted on the LUNA16 dataset demonstrate that the improved model outperforms the original model as well as other mainstream models such as YOLOv9 and RT-DETR across various evaluation metrics.