Object Detection Method for High Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery Based on Convolutional Neural Networks with Optimal Object Anchor Scales

Object detection is a key technique for automatic information extraction, analysis and understanding of high spatial resolution remote-sensing images (HSRIs). Object anchor scales are a critical factor for object detection of HSRIs based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). With respect to adaptively obtaining optimal object anchor scales for object detection of HSRIs, this paper proposes a novel object detection method for HSRIs based on CNNs with optimal object anchor scales. First, optimal object anchor scales for object detection of HSRIs are obtained using an adaptive object-scale learning operator. Then, a CNN object detection framework for HSRIs is designed based on optimal object anchor scales. Using multiple-object detection datasets, the proposed method is compared with some state-of-the-art object detection algorithms. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve 90.42%, 91.98% and 85.07% mAP on WHU-RSONE, UCAS-AOD and HSRC2016, respectively, and outperforms state-of-the-art object detection algorithms.