AeroDetectNet: a lightweight, high-precision network for enhanced detection of small objects in aerial remote sensing imagery

Abstract

Object detection in remote sensing imagery exhibits difficulties due to complex backgrounds, diverse object scales, and intricate spatial context relationships. Motivated by the problems mentioned above, this paper introduces AeroDetectNet, a novel lightweight and high-precision object detection network custom-designed for aerial remote sensing scenarios, building upon the YOLOv7-tiny algorithm. It enhances performance through four key improvements: the Normalized Wasserstein Distance for consistent object size sensitivity, the Involution module for reduced background noise, a self-designed RCS-Biformer module for better spatial context interpretation, and a self-designed WF-CoT SPPCSP feature pyramid for improved feature map weighting and context capture. Ablation studies conducted on a hybrid dataset composed of three open-source remote sensing datasets (including NWPU VHR-10 remote sensing images, RSOD remote sensing images, and VisDrone UAV images) have demonstrated the effectiveness of four improvements specifically for small-size object detection. Visualizations through Grad-CAM further demonstrate AeroDetectNet's capacity to extract and focus on key object features. Upon individual testing across three open-source datasets, AeroDetectNet has successfully demonstrated its ability to identify objects in images with a smaller pixel area. Through experimental comparisons with other related studies, the AeroDetectNet achieved a competitive mAP while maintaining fewer model parameters, highlighting its highly accurate and lightweight properties.