Domain Knowledge Based Small Sample Ship Target Detection Method

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is widely used in ship target detection because of its ability to operate under various weather conditions. However, some target images are difficult to obtain and label, resulting in a small sample size, which limits the development of target detection. Aiming at the problem of ship target detection in small sample SAR images, domain knowledge is used to revise and enhance the basic model in this paper. Firstly, a lightweight convolutional neural network model more suitable for small-sample SAR image ship target classification is proposed, involving target pixel and aspect ratio as domain knowledge to correct the classification results. Then, for ship target detection in SAR images, the acquisition method of scale class domain knowledge is improved. Moreover, texture-related domain knowledge based on the gray level co-occurrence matrix is extracted and used as classification features for the model to revise the model. Finally, Marine Targets Classification Dataset (MTCD) and Marine Targets Detection Dataset (MTDD) are briefly introduced and adjusted to meet the requirements of this research through screening and modification. The test results on balanced MTDD and small-sample datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of domain knowledge in improving network performance.