Lightweight Pedestrian Detection Network for UAV Remote Sensing Images Based on Strideless Pooling

Abstract

The need for pedestrian target detection in uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) remote sensing images has become increasingly significant as the technology continues to evolve. UAVs equipped with high-resolution cameras can capture detailed imagery of various scenarios, making them ideal for monitoring and surveillance applications. Pedestrian detection is particularly crucial in scenarios such as traffic monitoring, security surveillance, and disaster response, where the safety and well-being of individuals are paramount. However, pedestrian detection in UAV remote sensing images poses several challenges. Firstly, the small size of pedestrians relative to the overall image, especially at higher altitudes, makes them difficult to detect. Secondly, the varying backgrounds and lighting conditions in remote sensing images can further complicate the task of detection. Traditional object detection methods often struggle to handle these complexities, resulting in decreased detection accuracy and increased false positives. Addressing the aforementioned concerns, this paper proposes a lightweight object detection model that integrates GhostNet and YOLOv5s. Building upon this foundation, we further introduce the SPD-Conv module to the model. With this addition, the aim is to preserve fine-grained features of the images during downsampling, thereby enhancing the model’s capability to recognize small-scale objects. Furthermore, the coordinate attention module is introduced to further improve the model’s recognition accuracy. In the proposed model, the number of parameters is successfully reduced to 4.77 M, compared with 7.01 M in YOLOv5s, representing a 32% reduction. The mean average precision (mAP) increased from 0.894 to 0.913, reflecting a 1.9% improvement. We have named the proposed model “GSC-YOLO”. This study holds significant importance in advancing the lightweighting of UAV target detection models and addressing the challenges associated with complex scene object detection.