YOLO-RLDW: An Algorithm for Object Detection in Aerial Images Under Complex Backgrounds

Aiming at the challenges of low detection accuracy, susceptibility to complex background interference, difficulty in detecting small objects, and multi-scale object issues in aerial images, our proposed an improved YOLOv8-based object detection algorithm, named YOLO-RLDW. Leveraging the advantages of Receptive Field Attention Convolution (RFAConv), we designed a feature extraction module named C2f-RFA to enhance the feature extraction capability for small objects in aerial images. Inspired by the concept of Large Separable Kernel Attention (LSKA), we developed the SPPF-LSKA module, which effectively reduces the interference of aerial backgrounds in object detection. We replaced the YOLOv8 detection head with a Dynamic Head (DyHead), further enhancing the model's generalization and adaptability. Finally, we employed as boundary box regression loss based on a dynamic focusing mechanism, WIoU, as the loss function, which accelerates model convergence while improving the localization capability for multi-scale objects. Experimental results demonstrate that on the VisDrone2021 dataset, the proposed algorithm achieves improvements of 5.5%, 3.9%, 5.4%, and 3.7% in precision (P), recall (R), mean average precision (mAP50), and mAP95, respectively, compared to the original algorithm. On our self-built remote sensing image dataset RSI, the accuracy, recall, and mean average precision reach 94.2%, 91.0%, and 95.4%, respectively, demonstrating good performance in detecting objects in aerial images. Comparison with other mainstream object detection algorithms validates the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.