Object detection in hospital facilities: A comprehensive dataset and performance evaluation

Detecting objects in hospital indoor environments is critical for scene understanding and can have various applications in healthcare. Deep learning algorithms have proven to be effective in object recognition from images or videos, but the availability of annotated datasets plays a crucial role in their successful application. However, there is a shortage of datasets for object detection in hospital settings, hindering the advancement of hospital indoor object detection algorithms. In this paper, we present the Hospital Indoor Object Detection (HIOD) dataset, consisting of 4,417 images covering 56 object categories. The HIOD dataset represents the frequently encountered objects in hospitals and comprises 51,869 annotated objects. The dataset is characterized by dense annotation, with an average of 11.7 objects and 6.8 object categories per image. An object detection benchmark was established using the HIOD dataset and eight state-of-the-art object detectors. The benchmark provides a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of the selected object detectors on a large and diverse set of images of objects commonly seen in hospital environments. The results of the benchmark can be used to compare and analyze the performance of different object detectors and identify their strengths and weaknesses for use in hospital environments. In the benchmark, one-stage detectors have shown superior performance compared to two-stage detectors of similar parameter sizes. In particular, YOLOv6-L was able to attain a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 51.7% while operating at a detection speed of 255 FPS. The benchmark and dataset can serve as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners in the field of computer vision and robotics, helping to advance the development of more effective and efficient object detection algorithms for developing automated operations in hospitals such as robotic disinfection and patient assistance.