A feature fusion deep-projection convolution neural network for vehicle detection in aerial images

PLoS One. 2021 May 7;16(5):e0250782. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250782. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

With the rapid development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, vehicle detection in aerial images plays an important role in different applications. Comparing with general object detection problems, vehicle detection in aerial images is still a challenging research topic since it is plagued by various unique factors, e.g. different camera angle, small vehicle size and complex background. In this paper, a Feature Fusion Deep-Projection Convolution Neural Network is proposed to enhance the ability to detect small vehicles in aerial images. The backbone of the proposed framework utilizes a novel residual block named stepwise res-block to explore high-level semantic features as well as conserve low-level detail features at the same time. A specially designed feature fusion module is adopted in the proposed framework to further balance the features obtained from different levels of the backbone. A deep-projection deconvolution module is used to minimize the impact of the information contamination introduced by down-sampling/up-sampling processes. The proposed framework has been evaluated by UCAS-AOD, VEDAI, and DOTA datasets. According to the evaluation results, the proposed framework outperforms other state-of-the-art vehicle detection algorithms for aerial images.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Deep Learning*
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted*
  • Remote Sensing Technology*

Grants and funding

This work is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 61601280) via research grants given to the following authors:Bin Wang and Bin Xu. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis,decision to publish,or preparation of the manuscript.