Underwater Object Detection

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Overview

Underwater object detection studies how to locate and classify fish, debris, divers, and other targets in images affected by color loss, blur, backscatter, clutter, or sonar noise. Common approaches adapt YOLO-style detectors with multi-scale feature pyramids, attention, and physics-aware image restoration; sonar work also explores spiking networks, 3D detection, and fusion with cameras. Evaluation spans optical datasets such as RUOD, DUO, and URPC and sonar datasets such as UATD, with newer benchmarks examining domain differences, annotation quality, and cross-modal robustness. A central challenge is balancing accuracy, small-target sensitivity, and real-time efficiency while ensuring models generalize across changing water, seabed, sensors, and acquisition conditions.

Latest papers

CardsList

29 papers2 papers in the last four weeks, down 60% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. Revealing Imaging Characteristics of Thermal Wakes from Underwater Vehicles Without Cooling-Water Discharge

    Oct 26, 2026Guoyi Zhang, Yanjin Du, Guangsheng Xu +16Underwater Object DetectionMaritime Surveillance

    School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen, 518107, Guangdong, China · Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, Jilin, China · Institute of Machinery Manufacturing Technology, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, 621900, China +3

  2. SonarVoxNet: Diver Detection in 3D Bounding Box using 3D Sonar

    Oct 1, 2026Eugene Park, Jiwon Lee, Seyoung Kan +3Object Pose EstimationUnderwater Object Detection

  3. Active Mapping of Underwater Litter Using Camera-Sonar Fusion

    Sep 30, 2026David Rete, Patrick Boros, Lucian BusoniuActive SensingUnderwater Robotics

    Department of Automation Technical University of Cluj-Napoca Romania

  4. mbariml: a curation pipeline for turning deep-sea imagery and video into object-detection training data

    Sep 21, 2026Lonny Lundsten, Kevin Barnard, Dave CaressTraining Data CurationHuman-in-the-Loop Annotation

    Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

  5. Signal-Centric Remote Sensing via Alternative Preprocessing and Acoustic Processing for ML-Driven Applications

    Sep 17, 2026Logan Luna, Sirio Jansen-Sánchez, Ilteris Demirkiran +1Remote SensingUnderwater Object Detection

    Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Daytona Beach, USA

  6. LoRA Enhanced Contrastive Learning with SAS Vision Transformers

    Sep 17, 2026Dan Zimmerman, Frank E. Bobe, Amelia L. McCormack +2SAR ATRUnderwater Object Detection

    Center for Connected Autonomy & AI Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, USA · Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division Panama City, USA · Department of Computer Science Florida State University Tallahassee, USA

  7. Towards Scaling Marine Perception with Synthetic Data

    Sep 17, 2026Haoyu Ma, Onur Bagoren, Anja Sheppard +6Synthetic-to-Real Domain AdaptationSynthetic Data Generation

    Department of Robotics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

  8. Quantum-Gated LiteSSD: A Parameter-Efficient Lightweight Hybrid Quantum-Classical Framework for Forward-Looking Sonar Object Detection

    Sep 12, 2026Niloy Kumar Mondal, Poulomi Sarker PujaEfficient Object DetectionUnderwater Object Detection

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh · Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology, Khulna 9203, Bangladesh

  9. Calibration and Comparative Analysis of Forward-Looking Sonar and 3D Sonar for Enhanced Underwater Object Recognition

    Aug 29, 2026Aditya Penumarti, Khanh Dong, Zi-Hao Zhang +6Underwater ImagingUnderwater Object Detection

    College of Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA · Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at the Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea · Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, USA +1

  10. RSFusionDet: Underwater RGB-Sonar Multimodal Object Detection

    Aug 26, 2026Zhuoyan Liu, Yihan Wang, Bo Wang +2Multimodal Object DetectionUnderwater Object Detection

    National Key Laboratory of Autonomous Marine Vehicle Technology, Harbin Engineering University · Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  11. Spiking Neural Networks for Energy-Efficient Object Detection in Forward-Looking Sonar Imagery

    Aug 22, 2026Gwenevere Frank, Gert CauwenberghsEfficient Object DetectionUnderwater Object Detection

    Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA · Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA

  12. Robust Cross-Modal Foundation Model Perception for Underwater Robots under Degraded Visual Conditions

    Aug 20, 2026Mohammad Arif Ul AlamMultimodal RobustnessMultimodal Sensor Fusion

    College of Science and Technology, North Carolina A & T State University, Lowell, MA, USA

  13. SCTD 3.0: Sonar Common Target Detection in the Wild - A Large-Scale, Multi-Scene Dataset from Real Marine Surveys

    Aug 8, 2026Peng ZhangUnderwater ImagingUnderwater Object Detection

  14. Decoupled Pipeline with Proposal Reranking and Score Fusion for Positive-Unlabeled Marine Species Detection

    Jul 21, 2026Robert James Brock, Sebastian Maximilian Krupa, Jason Kahei TamFine-Grained Image ClassificationObject Detection

    Georgia Institute of Technology, North Ave NW, Atlanta, GA 30332

  15. Why Domain Matters: Domain-Aware Benchmarking of Underwater Object Detection and Annotation Quality

    Jul 12, 2026Melanie Wille, Dimity Miller, Tobias Fischer +1Distribution ShiftUnderwater Imaging

    QUT Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

  16. Rethinking Conditional Generation for Underwater Salient Object Detection

    Jul 2, 2026Hua Li, Yongjie Weng, Yutong Li +3Salient Object DetectionConditional Diffusion Models

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China · School of Control Science and Engineering and the Key Laboratory of Machine Intelligence and System Control, Ministry of Education, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, China · School of Data Science, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China

  17. Autonomous Subsea Cable Search and Tracking with Graph-Optimised Priors and Visual Tracking

    Jun 22, 2026Ibrahim Fadhil Djauhari, Adrian Bodenmann, Samuel Simmons +6Underwater RoboticsUnderwater Object Detection

    Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute, University of Southampton, UK · Sonardyne International Ltd., Yately, UK · Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, Japan

  18. A Dual-Branch Collaborative Framework for Joint Optimization of Underwater Image Enhancement and Object Detection

    Jun 14, 2026Liyuan Cao, Zheng Liu, Guanghao Liao +2Underwater Image EnhancementUnderwater Imaging

    School of Electronic and Information Engineering, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, No.189 Qianshan Middle Road, Lishan District, Anshan, 114051, Liaoning, China

  19. MambaDSF: Multi-Scale SSM with Dilated Feature Fusion for Sonar Small Target Detection

    May 24, 2026Hui Lin, Jiayi Li, Jing Wang +1Underwater ImagingSmall Object Detection

    School of Information Science and Engineering, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China · School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia

  20. Learning Dynamic Structural Specialization for Underwater Salient Object Detection

    May 15, 2026Lin Hong, Chenhui Wang, Linan Deng +7Underwater ImagingSalient Object Detection

    School of Automation, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.

  21. HyDRA Scorpion: A Cost-effective and Modular ROV for Real-Time Underwater Inspection, Intervention, and Object Detection

    May 9, 2026Anika Tabassum Orchi, Md Farhan Zaman, Md Darain Khan +16RoboticsRobotic Manipulation

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, United International University, United City, Madani Ave, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh · Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, United International University, United City, Madani Ave, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

  22. A Marine Debris Detection Framework for Ocean Robots via Self-Attention Enhancement and Feature Interaction Optimization

    May 8, 2026Yuyang Li, Jiashu Han, Yinyi Lai +2Self-AttentionSmall Object Detection

    School of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hohai University, Changzhou, 213200, China · Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China · Department of Mechanical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, 999077, China

  23. UniV2D: Bridging Visual Restoration and Semantic Perception for Underwater Salient Object Detection

    May 8, 2026Laibin Chang, Shaodong Wang, Yunke Wang +4Underwater Image EnhancementUnderwater Imaging

    School of Computer Science, Wuhan University · School of Computer Science, The University of Sydney · School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology

  24. Why Domain Matters: A Preliminary Study of Domain Effects in Underwater Object Detection

    Apr 28, 2026Melanie Wille, Dimity Miller, Tobias Fischer +1Distribution ShiftUnderwater Imaging

    QUT Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology

  25. A Probabilistic Framework for Improving Dense Object Detection in Underwater Image Data via Annealing-Based Data Augmentation

    Apr 23, 2026Eleanor Wiesler, Trace BaxleySynthetic Data AugmentationData Augmentation

    Harvard Department of Mathematics. · Harvard Department of Computer Science.

  26. USIS-PGM: Photometric Gaussian Mixtures for Underwater Salient Instance Segmentation

    Mar 14, 2026Lin Hong, Xiangtong Yao, Mürüvvet Bozkurt +2Image SegmentationInstance Segmentation

    Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China · School of CIT, Chair i6, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany · School of CIT, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany +1

  27. Adaptive Enhancement and Dual-Pooling Sequential Attention for Lightweight Underwater Object Detection with YOLOv10

    Mar 4, 2026Md. Mushibur Rahman, Umme Fawzia Rahim, Enam Ahmed TaufikObject DetectionUnderwater Object Detection

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Dhaka University of Engineering & Technology Gazipur, 1707, Bangladesh · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BRAC University Dhaka, Bangladesh

  28. SPMamba-YOLO: An Underwater Object Detection Network Based on Multi-Scale Feature Enhancement and Global Context Modeling

    Feb 26, 2026Guanghao Liao, Zhen Liu, Liyuan Cao +2Underwater Object DetectionEfficient Object Detection

    School of Electronic and Information Engineering, University of Science and Technology Liaoning, Anshan, 114051, China

  29. FinSight-Net:A Physics-Aware Decoupled Network with Frequency-Domain Compensation for Underwater Fish Detection in Smart Aquaculture

    Feb 23, 2026Jinsong Yang, Zeyuan Hu, Yichen Li +1Underwater Object DetectionEfficient Object Detection

    Dalian Key Laboratory of Smart Fishery, Dalian, China · College of Information Engineering, Dalian Ocean University, China · Liaoning Provincial Key of Marine Information Technology, China +2