Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images Using Deep Learning: From Theory to Applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62411/faith.3048-3719-114

Keywords:

Intelligent transportation systems, Object detection, Remote sensing, Slicing-aided inference, Small object detection, YOLOv11

Abstract

Object detection for sensing images is one of the promising research directions in computer vision. Applications for object detection from remote sensing images play an important role in analyzing aerial or satellite imagery. Benefits include applications in monitoring buildings and infrastructure, transportation, supporting search and rescue or responding to natural disasters, and environmental research. However, detecting objects in remote sensing images is difficult due to the diversity of shapes and sizes, viewing angles of objects, and complex background environments. In this paper, the authors present a Deep Learning (DL)-based object detection process from remotely sensed images, the main goal of which is to improve the ability to detect small objects in high-resolution aerial images. Implement and evaluate the super-slicing inference technique in the YOLOv11 model to improve the ability to detect very small and extremely small objects. Many simulation results are tested experimentally in the problem of detecting and tracking vehicles in Vietnam (Thai Nguyen). The results show that the system can accurately detect small objects such as pedestrians, motorbikes, and cars at a distance, with confidence ranging from 0.31 to 0.90. Some detection situations are successful even when the object is located at the edge of the slice. Finally, the authors discuss potential future research directions and unaddressed formulations.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Thang C. Vu, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Thanh V. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Tao V. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Dung T. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Long Q. Dinh, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Mui D. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Ha T. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Information and Communication Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Hung T. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

Minh T. Nguyen, Thai Nguyen University of Technology

Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen University, Thai Nguyen city 240000, Viet Nam

References

Y. Xiao et al., “A review of object detection based on deep learning,” Multimed. Tools Appl., vol. 79, no. 33–34, pp. 23729–23791, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1007/s11042-020-08976-6.

M. D. M. T. Nguyen and M. D. M. T. Nguyen, “Artificial Intelligence for Human Detection, Identification and Tracking: Methods and Applications,” J. Futur. Artif. Intell. Technol., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 79–94, Apr. 2025, doi: 10.62411/faith.3048-3719-87.

L. Zhang, G.-S. Xia, T. Wu, L. Lin, and X. C. Tai, “Deep Learning for Remote Sensing Image Understanding,” J. Sensors, vol. 2016, pp. 1–2, 2016, doi: 10.1155/2016/7954154.

H. T. Do et al., “Energy‐Efficient Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Surveillance Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI),” Wirel. Commun. Mob. Comput., vol. 2021, no. 1, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.1155/2021/8615367.

A. Kyriou, V. Mpelogianni, K. Nikolakopoulos, and P. P. Groumpos, “Review of Remote Sensing Approaches and Soft Computing for Infrastructure Monitoring,” Geomatics, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 367–394, Jul. 2023, doi: 10.3390/geomatics3030021.

T. L. Mien, N. D. Tu, and N. Van Lam, “Deploying YOLOv8 for Real-Time Road Crack Detection on Smart Road Length Measurement Devices,” J. Futur. Artif. Intell. Technol., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 135–144, May 2025, doi: 10.62411/faith.3048-3719-102.

Q. Tan, J. Ling, J. J. Hu, X. Qin, and J. J. Hu, “Vehicle Detection in High Resolution Satellite Remote Sensing Images Based on Deep Learning,” IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 153394–153402, 2020, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3017894.

M. L. Trinh, D. T. Nguyen, L. Q. Dinh, M. D. M. T. Nguyen, D. R. I. M. Setiadi, and M. D. M. T. Nguyen, “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Networking Algorithms: Communication, Control, and AI-Based Approaches,” Algorithms, vol. 18, no. 5, p. 244, Apr. 2025, doi: 10.3390/a18050244.

M. T. Nguyen, C. V. Nguyen, and H. N. Nguyen, “Visualization-based monitoring in early warning systems with wireless sensor networks,” Indones. J. Electr. Eng. Comput. Sci., vol. 31, no. 1, p. 281, Jul. 2023, doi: 10.11591/ijeecs.v31.i1.pp281-289.

R. K. Vemuri, P. C. S. Reddy, B. S. Puneeth Kumar, J. Ravi, S. Sharma, and S. Ponnusamy, “Deep learning based remote sensing technique for environmental parameter retrieval and data fusion from physical models,” Arab. J. Geosci., vol. 14, no. 13, p. 1230, Jul. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s12517-021-07577-3.

G. Cheng, X. Xie, J. Han, L. Guo, and G.-S. Xia, “Remote Sensing Image Scene Classification Meets Deep Learning: Challenges, Methods, Benchmarks, and Opportunities,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., vol. 13, pp. 3735–3756, 2020, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2020.3005403.

Y. Li, H. Zhang, X. Xue, Y. Jiang, and Q. Shen, “Deep learning for remote sensing image classification: A survey,” WIREs Data Min. Knowl. Discov., vol. 8, no. 6, Nov. 2018, doi: 10.1002/widm.1264.

M. T. Nguyen et al., “UAV-Assisted Data Collection in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Comprehensive Survey,” Electronics, vol. 10, no. 21, p. 2603, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.3390/electronics10212603.

H. Jiang et al., “A Survey on Deep Learning-Based Change Detection from High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images,” Remote Sens., vol. 14, no. 7, p. 1552, Mar. 2022, doi: 10.3390/rs14071552.

P. Wang, B. Bayram, and E. Sertel, “A comprehensive review on deep learning based remote sensing image super-resolution methods,” Earth-Science Rev., vol. 232, p. 104110, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.104110.

K. Li, G. Wan, G. Cheng, L. Meng, and J. Han, “Object detection in optical remote sensing images: A survey and a new benchmark,” ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens., vol. 159, pp. 296–307, Sep. 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2019.11.023.

U. Alganci, M. Soydas, and E. Sertel, “Comparative Research on Deep Learning Approaches for Airplane Detection from Very High-Resolution Satellite Images,” Remote Sens., vol. 12, no. 3, p. 458, Feb. 2020, doi: 10.3390/rs12030458.

Z. Zheng, L. Lei, H. Sun, and G. Kuang, “A Review of Remote Sensing Image Object Detection Algorithms Based on Deep Learning,” in 2020 IEEE 5th International Conference on Image, Vision and Computing (ICIVC), Jul. 2020, pp. 34–43. doi: 10.1109/ICIVC50857.2020.9177453.

X. Wang and Q. Zhang, “The Building Area Recognition in Image Based on Faster-RCNN,” in 2018 International Conference on Sensing,Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Control (SDPC), Aug. 2018, pp. 676–680. doi: 10.1109/SDPC.2018.8664773.

C.-Y. Wang, H.-Y. Mark Liao, Y.-H. Wu, P.-Y. Chen, J.-W. Hsieh, and I.-H. Yeh, “CSPNet: A New Backbone that can Enhance Learning Capability of CNN,” in 2020 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), Jun. 2020, pp. 1571–1580. doi: 10.1109/CVPRW50498.2020.00203.

L. Chen, C. Liu, F. Chang, S. Li, and Z. Nie, “Adaptive multi-level feature fusion and attention-based network for arbitrary-oriented object detection in remote sensing imagery,” Neurocomputing, vol. 451, pp. 67–80, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.neucom.2021.04.011.

G. Zhang, S. Lu, and W. Zhang, “CAD-Net: A Context-Aware Detection Network for Objects in Remote Sensing Imagery,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 57, no. 12, pp. 10015–10024, Dec. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2019.2930982.

G. Wang et al., “FSoD-Net: Full-Scale Object Detection From Optical Remote Sensing Imagery,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 60, pp. 1–18, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3064599.

Z. Xiao, K. Wang, Q. Wan, X. Tan, C. Xu, and F. Xia, “A2S-Det: Efficiency Anchor Matching in Aerial Image Oriented Object Detection,” Remote Sens., vol. 13, no. 1, p. 73, Dec. 2020, doi: 10.3390/rs13010073.

Y. Bai, Y. Zhang, M. Ding, and B. Ghanem, “SOD-MTGAN: Small Object Detection via Multi-Task Generative Adversarial Network,” in Computer Vision – ECCV 2018, 2018, pp. 210–226. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-01261-8_13.

Y. Zheng, P. Sun, Z. Zhou, W. Xu, and Q. Ren, “ADT-Det: Adaptive Dynamic Refined Single-Stage Transformer Detector for Arbitrary-Oriented Object Detection in Satellite Optical Imagery,” Remote Sens., vol. 13, no. 13, p. 2623, Jul. 2021, doi: 10.3390/rs13132623.

G. Cheng et al., “Prototype-CNN for Few-Shot Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 60, pp. 1–10, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3078507.

X. Li, J. Deng, and Y. Fang, “Few-Shot Object Detection on Remote Sensing Images,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 60, pp. 1–14, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2021.3051383.

X. Feng, J. Han, X. Yao, and G. Cheng, “TCANet: Triple Context-Aware Network for Weakly Supervised Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 59, no. 8, pp. 6946–6955, Aug. 2021, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2020.3030990.

Z. Zheng et al., “HyNet: Hyper-scale object detection network framework for multiple spatial resolution remote sensing imagery,” ISPRS J. Photogramm. Remote Sens., vol. 166, pp. 1–14, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2020.04.019.

M. T. Nguyen, L. H. Truong, and T. T. H. Le, “Video Surveillance Processing Algorithms utilizing Artificial Intelligent (AI) for Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAVs),” MethodsX, vol. 8, p. 101472, 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2021.101472.

Y. Li, H. Mao, R. Liu, X. Pei, L. Jiao, and R. Shang, “A Lightweight Keypoint-Based Oriented Object Detection of Remote Sensing Images,” Remote Sens., vol. 13, no. 13, p. 2459, Jun. 2021, doi: 10.3390/rs13132459.

M. T. Nguyen, L. H. Truong, T. T. Tran, and C.-F. Chien, “Artificial intelligence based data processing algorithm for video surveillance to empower industry 3.5,” Comput. Ind. Eng., vol. 148, p. 106671, Oct. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.cie.2020.106671.

K. Simonyan and A. Zisserman, “Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition,” in ArXiv, Apr. 2015, pp. 1–14. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.

K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, and J. Sun, “Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition,” in 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun. 2016, vol. 2016-Decem, pp. 770–778. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2016.90.

Z. Zhong, L. Zheng, G. Kang, S. Li, and Y. Yang, “Random Erasing Data Augmentation,” Proc. AAAI Conf. Artif. Intell., vol. 34, no. 07, pp. 13001–13008, Apr. 2020, doi: 10.1609/aaai.v34i07.7000.

A. Krizhevsky, I. Sutskever, and G. E. Hinton, “ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks,” Commun. ACM, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 84–90, May 2017, doi: 10.1145/3065386.

G. Tsagkatakis, A. Aidini, K. Fotiadou, M. Giannopoulos, A. Pentari, and P. Tsakalides, “Survey of Deep-Learning Approaches for Remote Sensing Observation Enhancement,” Sensors, vol. 19, no. 18, p. 3929, Sep. 2019, doi: 10.3390/s19183929.

M. Sharma et al., “YOLOrs: Object Detection in Multimodal Remote Sensing Imagery,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., vol. 14, pp. 1497–1508, 2021, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2020.3041316.

Y. Wang, Z. Dong, and Y. Zhu, “Multiscale Block Fusion Object Detection Method for Large-Scale High-Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 99530–99539, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2930092.

A. Van Etten, “You Only Look Twice: Rapid Multi-Scale Object Detection In Satellite Imagery,” ArXiv. May 24, 2018. [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.09512

C. Szegedy et al., “Going deeper with convolutions,” in 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun. 2015, pp. 1–9. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2015.7298594.

G. Huang, Z. Liu, L. Van Der Maaten, and K. Q. Weinberger, “Densely Connected Convolutional Networks,” in 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jul. 2017, pp. 2261–2269. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2017.243.

J. Redmon and A. Farhadi, “YOLO9000: Better, Faster, Stronger,” in 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jul. 2017, pp. 6517–6525. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2017.690.

J. Redmon and A. Farhadi, “YOLOv3: An Incremental Improvement,” ArXiv, Apr. 2018, doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.

J. R. R. Uijlings, K. E. A. van de Sande, T. Gevers, and A. W. M. Smeulders, “Selective Search for Object Recognition,” Int. J. Comput. Vis., vol. 104, no. 2, pp. 154–171, Sep. 2013, doi: 10.1007/s11263-013-0620-5.

C. L. Zitnick and P. Dollár, “Edge Boxes: Locating Object Proposals from Edges,” in Computer Vision – ECCV 2014, 2014, pp. 391–405. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-10602-1_26.

S. Ren, K. He, R. Girshick, and J. Sun, “Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks,” ArXiv. Jan. 06, 2016. [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01497

H. Law and J. Deng, “CornerNet: Detecting Objects as Paired Keypoints,” ArXiv. Mar. 18, 2019. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.1808.01244.

X. Zhou, J. Zhuo, and P. Krahenbuhl, “Bottom-Up Object Detection by Grouping Extreme and Center Points,” in 2019 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun. 2019, pp. 850–859. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2019.00094.

A. Neubeck and L. Van Gool, “Efficient Non-Maximum Suppression,” in 18th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR’06), 2006, pp. 850–855. doi: 10.1109/ICPR.2006.479.

A. Shrivastava, A. Gupta, and R. Girshick, “Training Region-Based Object Detectors with Online Hard Example Mining,” in 2016 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Jun. 2016, pp. 761–769. doi: 10.1109/CVPR.2016.89.

Y. Long, Y. Gong, Z. Xiao, and Q. Liu, “Accurate Object Localization in Remote Sensing Images Based on Convolutional Neural Networks,” IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 2486–2498, May 2017, doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2016.2645610.

Y. Gu, Y. Wang, and Y. Li, “A Survey on Deep Learning-Driven Remote Sensing Image Scene Understanding: Scene Classification, Scene Retrieval and Scene-Guided Object Detection,” Appl. Sci., vol. 9, no. 10, p. 2110, May 2019, doi: 10.3390/app9102110.

L. Huang, B. Jiang, S. Lv, Y. Liu, and Y. Fu, “Deep-Learning-Based Semantic Segmentation of Remote Sensing Images: A Survey,” IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Obs. Remote Sens., vol. 17, pp. 8370–8396, 2024, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2023.3335891.

M. A. R. Alif, “YOLOv11 for Vehicle Detection: Advancements, Performance, and Applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems,” ArXiv. Oct. 30, 2024. [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22898

P. Hidayatullah, N. Syakrani, M. R. Sholahuddin, T. Gelar, and R. Tubagus, “YOLOv8 to YOLO11: A Comprehensive Architecture In-depth Comparative Review,” ArXiv. Apr. 08, 2025. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.

M. Hussain, “YOLOv1 to v8: Unveiling Each Variant–A Comprehensive Review of YOLO,” IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 42816–42833, 2024, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3378568.

G. P. C. P. da Luz, G. M. Sato, L. F. G. Gonzalez, and J. F. Borin, “Smart Parking with Pixel-Wise ROI Selection for Vehicle Detection Using YOLOv8, YOLOv9, YOLOv10, and YOLOv11,” ArXiv, Dec. 2024, [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/2412.01983

R. Khanam and M. Hussain, “YOLOv11: An Overview of the Key Architectural Enhancements,” ArXiv. Oct. 23, 2024. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.2410.17725.

Y. Li, H. Yan, D. Li, and H. Wang, “Robust Miner Detection in Challenging Underground Environments: An Improved YOLOv11 Approach,” Appl. Sci., vol. 14, no. 24, p. 11700, Dec. 2024, doi: 10.3390/app142411700.

A. Ghosh, “YOLO11: Redefining Real-Time Object Detection,” Learn openCV, 2024. https://learnopencv.com/yolo11/ (accessed Jun. 01, 2025).

T. Yasmin, D. La, K. La, M. T. Nguyen, and H. M. La, “Concrete spalling detection system based on semantic segmentation using deep architectures,” Comput. Struct., vol. 300, p. 107398, Aug. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.compstruc.2024.107398.

M. Muzammul, A. Algarni, Y. Y. Ghadi, and M. Assam, “Enhancing UAV Aerial Image Analysis: Integrating Advanced SAHI Techniques With Real-Time Detection Models on the VisDrone Dataset,” IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 21621–21633, 2024, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3363413.

R. Kunseewattana, T. Sodaying, W. Lee, C. Mahatthanajatuphat, and V. Saing, “Automatic Crosswalk Detection and Counting Using YOLO and SAHI Techniques,” in 2025 13th International Electrical Engineering Congress (iEECON), Mar. 2025, pp. 1–4. doi: 10.1109/iEECON64081.2025.10987838.

N. O. Adiwijaya, R. Sarno, and D. R. Wijaya, “Real Time Detection of Coffee Bean Defects Using YOLO Method and SAHI (Slicing Aided Hyper Inference) Framework,” in 2024 Beyond Technology Summit on Informatics International Conference (BTS-I2C), Dec. 2024, pp. 286–291. doi: 10.1109/BTS-I2C63534.2024.10941784.

F. M. A. Mazen and Y. Shaker, “Small Object Detection in Complex Images: Evaluation of Faster R-CNN and Slicing Aided Hyper Inference,” Int. J. Adv. Comput. Sci. Appl., vol. 16, no. 3, 2025, doi: 10.14569/IJACSA.2025.0160393.

F. C. Akyon, S. Onur Altinuc, and A. Temizel, “Slicing Aided Hyper Inference and Fine-Tuning for Small Object Detection,” in 2022 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Oct. 2022, pp. 966–970. doi: 10.1109/ICIP46576.2022.9897990.

Downloads

Published

2025-06-24

How to Cite

[1]
T. C. Vu, “Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images Using Deep Learning: From Theory to Applications in Intelligent Transportation Systems”, J. Fut. Artif. Intell. Tech., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 227–241, Jun. 2025.

Similar Articles

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.