AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion

Efficient mobile detection equipment plays a vital role in ensuring maritime safety, and accurate ship identification is crucial for maritime traffic. Recently, the most advanced learning-based methods have markedly improved the accuracy of ship detection, but these models often face huge challenges...

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Main Authors: Yingxiu Yuan, Xiaoyan Yu, Xianwei Rong, Xiaozhou Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-12-01
Series:Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/1/44
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author Yingxiu Yuan
Xiaoyan Yu
Xianwei Rong
Xiaozhou Wang
author_facet Yingxiu Yuan
Xiaoyan Yu
Xianwei Rong
Xiaozhou Wang
author_sort Yingxiu Yuan
collection DOAJ
description Efficient mobile detection equipment plays a vital role in ensuring maritime safety, and accurate ship identification is crucial for maritime traffic. Recently, the most advanced learning-based methods have markedly improved the accuracy of ship detection, but these models often face huge challenges on resource limited mobile devices due to their large size and high computational requirements. Thus, we propose a lightweight ship detection network based on attentional feature fusion, called AFF-LightNet. To enhance the fusion of multi-scale features and semantically inconsistent features, we introduce iterative attentional feature fusion (IAFF) into the proposed neck network, improving the efficiency of feature fusion by introducing a multi-scale channel attention module. Also, deep and cross network version 2 (DCNv2) is replaced by Convolution (Conv) in the backbone network to further improve the detection accuracy of the proposed network. It enhances the spatial sampling position in convolution and Region of Interest (Rol) pooling by introducing offsets. Moreover, a lightweight convolution GhostConv was introduced into the head network to reduce the number of parameters and computation cost. Last, Scalable Intersection over Union (SIOU) loss was leveraged to improve the convergence speed of the model. We conduct extensive experiments on the publicly available dataset SeaShips and compare it with existing methods. The experimental results show that compared with the standard YOLOv8n, the improved network has an average accuracy of 98.8%, an increase of 0.4%, a reduction of 1.9 G in computational complexity, and a reduction of 0.19 M in parameter count.
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spelling doaj-art-2bd2ae725efc41bcb75f3ac7ffcb4e3e2025-01-24T13:36:39ZengMDPI AGJournal of Marine Science and Engineering2077-13122024-12-011314410.3390/jmse13010044AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature FusionYingxiu Yuan0Xiaoyan Yu1Xianwei Rong2Xiaozhou Wang3School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, ChinaSchool of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, ChinaSchool of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Harbin Normal University, Harbin 150025, ChinaSchool of Electronic and Communication Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, ChinaEfficient mobile detection equipment plays a vital role in ensuring maritime safety, and accurate ship identification is crucial for maritime traffic. Recently, the most advanced learning-based methods have markedly improved the accuracy of ship detection, but these models often face huge challenges on resource limited mobile devices due to their large size and high computational requirements. Thus, we propose a lightweight ship detection network based on attentional feature fusion, called AFF-LightNet. To enhance the fusion of multi-scale features and semantically inconsistent features, we introduce iterative attentional feature fusion (IAFF) into the proposed neck network, improving the efficiency of feature fusion by introducing a multi-scale channel attention module. Also, deep and cross network version 2 (DCNv2) is replaced by Convolution (Conv) in the backbone network to further improve the detection accuracy of the proposed network. It enhances the spatial sampling position in convolution and Region of Interest (Rol) pooling by introducing offsets. Moreover, a lightweight convolution GhostConv was introduced into the head network to reduce the number of parameters and computation cost. Last, Scalable Intersection over Union (SIOU) loss was leveraged to improve the convergence speed of the model. We conduct extensive experiments on the publicly available dataset SeaShips and compare it with existing methods. The experimental results show that compared with the standard YOLOv8n, the improved network has an average accuracy of 98.8%, an increase of 0.4%, a reduction of 1.9 G in computational complexity, and a reduction of 0.19 M in parameter count.https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/1/44ship detectiondeep learningattentional feature fusionlightweight
spellingShingle Yingxiu Yuan
Xiaoyan Yu
Xianwei Rong
Xiaozhou Wang
AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
ship detection
deep learning
attentional feature fusion
lightweight
title AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
title_full AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
title_fullStr AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
title_full_unstemmed AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
title_short AFF-LightNet: A Lightweight Ship Detection Architecture Based on Attentional Feature Fusion
title_sort aff lightnet a lightweight ship detection architecture based on attentional feature fusion
topic ship detection
deep learning
attentional feature fusion
lightweight
url https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/1/44
work_keys_str_mv AT yingxiuyuan afflightnetalightweightshipdetectionarchitecturebasedonattentionalfeaturefusion
AT xiaoyanyu afflightnetalightweightshipdetectionarchitecturebasedonattentionalfeaturefusion
AT xianweirong afflightnetalightweightshipdetectionarchitecturebasedonattentionalfeaturefusion
AT xiaozhouwang afflightnetalightweightshipdetectionarchitecturebasedonattentionalfeaturefusion