arXiv · 2504.19347
Improving Small Drone Detection Through Multi-Scale Processing and Data Augmentation
Abstract
Detecting small drones, often indistinguishable from birds, is crucial for modern surveillance. This work introduces a drone detection methodology built upon the medium-sized YOLOv11 object detection model. To enhance its performance on small targets, we implemented a multi-scale approach in which the input image is processed both as a whole and in segmented parts, with subsequent prediction aggregation. We also utilized a copy-paste data augmentation technique to enrich the training dataset with diverse drone and bird examples. Finally, we implemented a post-processing technique that leverages frame-to-frame consistency to mitigate missed detections. The proposed approach attained first place in the 8th WOSDETC Drone-vs-Bird Detection Grand Challenge, held at the 2025 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), showcasing its capability to detect drones in complex environments effectively.
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Rayson Laroca, Marcelo dos Santos, David Menotti. 2025-04-27. Improving Small Drone Detection Through Multi-Scale Processing and Data Augmentation. https://doi.org/10.1109/ijcnn64981.2025.11227421
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