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This paper addresses the problem of detecting small objects in visible-spectrum aerial imagery. High background variability and weak feature saliency make small object detection a non-trivial task. Under such conditions, classical computer vision algorithms based on hand-crafted descriptors exhibit low efficiency, prompting a shift towards deep neural network architectures, which demonstrate superior generalization capability and robustness to false positives. We selected a one-stage approach based on a neural network predictive model as the primary object detection method. Also, several neural network architectures belonging to this class were analyzed, outlining their advantages and disadvantages. As the baseline detector, we adopted YOLO version 11 and incorporated a multi-scale feature aggregation module (which combines information from neural network layers operating at different scales) and a dimension-aware selective integration module (which automatically determines the dimension (channel, height, or width) along which to process features and fuses them selectively). These modifications aim to both enhance computational efficiency, enabling deployment of neural network models onboard aerial vehicles for real-time image analysis, and improve small object detection accuracy. Given the complexity of image annotation, we used an open synthetic image database containing approximately 4 000 images for training and testing (with a 90/10 split, respectively). We extend the training set using various random augmentation techniques. To evaluate the performance of the resulting predictive models, we employed mean Average Precision across all classes, using both a fixed 50% intersectionover- union threshold and a varying threshold from 50% to 95%. Overfitting was monitored by analyzing loss curves during training process. The proposed modifications to the YOLO architecture reduced image processing time by a factor of two while maintaining detection accuracy.

This article considers the task of multiclass classification of coniferous trees with varying degrees of damage by insect pests on images obtained using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We propose the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for the classification of fir trees Abies sibirica and Siberian pine trees Pinus sibirica in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) imagery. In our approach, we develop three CNN models based on the classical U-Net architecture, designed for pixel-wise classification of images (semantic segmentation). The first model, Mo-U-Net, incorporates several changes to the classical U-Net model. The second and third models, MSC-U-Net and MSC-Res-U-Net, respectively, form ensembles of three Mo-U-Net models, each varying in depth and input image sizes. Additionally, the MSC-Res-U-Net model includes the integration of residual blocks. To validate our approach, we have created two datasets of UAV images depicting trees affected by pests, specifically Abies sibirica and Pinus sibirica, and trained the proposed three CNN models utilizing mIoULoss and Focal Loss as loss functions. Subsequent evaluation focused on the effectiveness of each trained model in classifying damaged trees. The results obtained indicate that when mIoULoss served as the loss function, the proposed models fell short of practical applicability in the forestry industry, failing to achieve classification accuracy above the threshold value of 0.5 for individual classes of both tree species according to the IoU metric. However, under Focal Loss, the MSC-Res-U-Net and Mo-U-Net models, in contrast to the third proposed model MSC-U-Net, exhibited high classification accuracy (surpassing the threshold value of 0.5) for all classes of Abies sibirica and Pinus sibirica trees. Thus, these results underscore the practical significance of the MSC-Res-U-Net and Mo-U-Net models for forestry professionals, enabling accurate classification and early detection of pest outbreaks in coniferous trees.