VST-YOLOv8: A Trustworthy and Secure Defect Detection Framework for Industrial Gaskets

The surface quality of industrial gaskets directly impacts sealing performance, operational reliability, and market competitiveness. Inadequate or unreliable defect detection in silicone gaskets can lead to frequent maintenance, undetected faults, and security risks in downstream systems. This paper presents VST-YOLOv8, a trustworthy and secure defect detection framework built upon an enhanced YOLOv8 architecture. To address the limitations of C2F feature extraction in the traditional YOLOv8 backbone, we integrate the lightweight Mobile Vision Transformer v2 (ViT v2) to improve global feature representation while maintaining interpretability. For real-time industrial deployment, we incorporate the Gating-Structured Convolution (GSConv) module, which adaptively adjusts convolution kernels to emphasize features of different shapes, ensuring stable detection under varying production conditions. A Slim-neck structure reduces parameter count and computational complexity without sacrificing accuracy, contributing to robustness against performance degradation. Additionally, the Triplet Attention mechanism combines channel, spatial, and fine-grained attention to enhance feature discrimination, improving reliability in challenging visual environments. Experimental results show that VST-YOLOv8 achieves higher accuracy and recall compared to the baseline YOLOv8, while maintaining low latency suitable for edge deployment. When integrated with secure industrial control systems, the proposed framework supports authenticated, tamper-resistant detection pipelines, ensuring both operational efficiency and data integrity in real-world production. These contributions strengthen trust in AI-driven quality inspection, making the system suitable for safety-critical manufacturing processes.