YOLO-SE: Improved YOLOv8 for Remote Sensing Object Detection and Recognition

Object detection remains a pivotal aspect of remote sensing image analysis, and recent strides in Earth observation technology coupled with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have propelled the field forward. Despite advancements, challenges persist, especially in detecting objects across diverse scales and pinpointing small-sized targets. This paper introduces YOLO-SE, a novel YOLOv8-based network that innovatively addresses these challenges. First, the introduction of a lightweight convolution SEConv in lieu of standard convolutions reduces the network’s parameter count, thereby expediting the detection process. To tackle multi-scale object detection, the paper proposes the SEF module, an enhancement based…