IJSEA Volume 15 Issue 1

OceanNet: Multi-Scale Context Interaction for Underwater Object Detection

Zihao Wang, Yuzhang Chen, Yitian Li
10.7753/IJSEA1501.1008
keywords : underwater vision; object detection; deep learning; multi-scale perception

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Underwater optical imaging exhibits characteristics that are fundamentally different from imaging in air. As light propagates through water, it undergoes wavelength-dependent absorption and scattering, with shorter wavelengths being preserved more effectively than longer ones. This phenomenon causes the well-known blue–green color bias in underwater imagery, accompanied by contrast loss, edge blurring, and severe visual degradation. These distortions negatively affect the robustness of deep learning-based object detectors, whose feature extractors are typically optimized for clear, high-quality terrestrial images. Consequently, underwater object detection remains a significantly more challenging problem than its terrestrial counterpart. In this paper, we propose OceanNet, a multi-scale context interaction framework designed specifically for robust underwater object detection. OceanNet incorporates three key ideas: structural feature preservation, multi-scale contextual reasoning, and task-decoupled detection optimization. A Gradient-Preserved Feature Extraction Backbone is introduced to maintain high-frequency edge information that would otherwise be suppressed by underwater blur. A Cross-Scale Context Interaction Module enables efficient aggregation of global contextual information. Finally, a Dual-Domain Task-Decoupled Detection Head separates classification from localization learning, improving training stability and accuracy. Experiments on URPC2019 demonstrate that OceanNet achieves competitive performance while maintaining computational efficiency[1].
@artical{z1512026ijsea15011008,
Title = "OceanNet: Multi-Scale Context Interaction for Underwater Object Detection ",
Journal ="International Journal of Science and Engineering Applications (IJSEA)",
Volume = "15",
Issue ="1",
Pages ="48 - 53",
Year = "2026",
Authors ="Zihao Wang, Yuzhang Chen, Yitian Li"}