Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations

Over recent years, the increasing expansion of remote sensing image (RSI) datasets has made annotation tasks more challenging and labor-intensive, drawing considerable attention toward few-shot object detection (FSOD). Nevertheless, current mainstream FSOD models are primarily designed for natural i...

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Main Authors: Tiancheng Si, Shenyu Kong
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10835074/
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author Tiancheng Si
Shenyu Kong
author_facet Tiancheng Si
Shenyu Kong
author_sort Tiancheng Si
collection DOAJ
description Over recent years, the increasing expansion of remote sensing image (RSI) datasets has made annotation tasks more challenging and labor-intensive, drawing considerable attention toward few-shot object detection (FSOD). Nevertheless, current mainstream FSOD models are primarily designed for natural images and encounter two substantial challenges when applied to RSIs. 1) Inconsistent label assignment for novel instances between pre-training and fine-tuning confuses detectors, leading to diminished generalization performance. 2) Complex scenes within RSIs result in significant category variations, comprising high inter-class similarity and large intra-class variance, which impairs classification accuracy. Against the aforementioned challenges, we propose a novel FSOD approach in RSIs, termed EC-FSOD. Specifically, our approach introduces two key modules: Ensemble Class-free RPN (ECF-RPN) and Contrastive Prototype ETF Classifier (CPEC). The preceding module, ECF-RPN, generates proposals by integrating multiple dissimilar yet cooperative Class-free RPNs that perceive the shape and location of target objects, mitigating the confusion caused by label inconsistencies. Furthermore, the subsequent CPEC module combines two submodules, namely Contrastive Prototype Learning Network (CPLN) and Simplex ETF Classifier (SEC), to obtain a set of representative class prototypes and robust discriminative feature representations, which are employed to overcome the category variations and enhance the generalization performance of novel instances. Extensive experiments have revealed that our approach achieves top-2 results on the DIOR dataset and optimal performance on the NWPU VHR-10.v2 dataset.
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spelling doaj-art-22649e84b81e464284877cc09143e89a2025-01-15T00:02:47ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-01138169818610.1109/ACCESS.2025.352788110835074Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category VariationsTiancheng Si0https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3000-7093Shenyu Kong1https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4993-7492College of Computer and Information Engineering (College of Artificial Intelligence), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, ChinaSchool of Software, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo, Henan, ChinaOver recent years, the increasing expansion of remote sensing image (RSI) datasets has made annotation tasks more challenging and labor-intensive, drawing considerable attention toward few-shot object detection (FSOD). Nevertheless, current mainstream FSOD models are primarily designed for natural images and encounter two substantial challenges when applied to RSIs. 1) Inconsistent label assignment for novel instances between pre-training and fine-tuning confuses detectors, leading to diminished generalization performance. 2) Complex scenes within RSIs result in significant category variations, comprising high inter-class similarity and large intra-class variance, which impairs classification accuracy. Against the aforementioned challenges, we propose a novel FSOD approach in RSIs, termed EC-FSOD. Specifically, our approach introduces two key modules: Ensemble Class-free RPN (ECF-RPN) and Contrastive Prototype ETF Classifier (CPEC). The preceding module, ECF-RPN, generates proposals by integrating multiple dissimilar yet cooperative Class-free RPNs that perceive the shape and location of target objects, mitigating the confusion caused by label inconsistencies. Furthermore, the subsequent CPEC module combines two submodules, namely Contrastive Prototype Learning Network (CPLN) and Simplex ETF Classifier (SEC), to obtain a set of representative class prototypes and robust discriminative feature representations, which are employed to overcome the category variations and enhance the generalization performance of novel instances. Extensive experiments have revealed that our approach achieves top-2 results on the DIOR dataset and optimal performance on the NWPU VHR-10.v2 dataset.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10835074/Few-shot object detection (FSOD)remote sensing images (RSIs)transfer learningmetric learning
spellingShingle Tiancheng Si
Shenyu Kong
Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
IEEE Access
Few-shot object detection (FSOD)
remote sensing images (RSIs)
transfer learning
metric learning
title Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
title_full Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
title_fullStr Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
title_full_unstemmed Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
title_short Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing: Mitigating Label Inconsistencies and Navigating Category Variations
title_sort few shot object detection in remote sensing mitigating label inconsistencies and navigating category variations
topic Few-shot object detection (FSOD)
remote sensing images (RSIs)
transfer learning
metric learning
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10835074/
work_keys_str_mv AT tianchengsi fewshotobjectdetectioninremotesensingmitigatinglabelinconsistenciesandnavigatingcategoryvariations
AT shenyukong fewshotobjectdetectioninremotesensingmitigatinglabelinconsistenciesandnavigatingcategoryvariations