Polarization-Enhanced Multi-Target Underwater Salient Object Detection

Salient object detection (SOD) plays a critical role in underwater exploration systems. Traditional SOD approaches encounter notable constraints in underwater image analysis, primarily stemming from light scattering and absorption effects induced by suspended particulate matter in complex underwater...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jiayi Song, Peikai Zhao, Jiangtao Li, Liming Zhu, Khian-Hooi Chew, Rui-Pin Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-07-01
Series:Photonics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6732/12/7/707
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Salient object detection (SOD) plays a critical role in underwater exploration systems. Traditional SOD approaches encounter notable constraints in underwater image analysis, primarily stemming from light scattering and absorption effects induced by suspended particulate matter in complex underwater environments. In this work, we propose a deep learning-based multimodal method guided by multi-polarization parameters that integrates polarization de-scattering mechanisms with the powerful feature learning capability of neural networks to achieve adaptive multi-target SOD in an underwater turbid scattering environment. The proposed polarization-enhanced salient object detection network (PESODNet) employs a multi-polarization-parameter-guided, material-aware attention mechanism and a contrastive feature calibration unit, significantly enhancing its multi-material, multi-target detection capabilities in underwater scattering environments. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method achieves substantial performance improvements in multi-target underwater SOD tasks, outperforming state-of-the-art models of salient object detection in detection accuracy.
ISSN:2304-6732