Vision-Based Anti-UAV Detection Based on YOLOv7-GS in Complex Backgrounds

Unauthorized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) pose threats to public safety and individual privacy. Traditional object-detection approaches often fall short during their application in anti-UAV technologies. To address this issue, we propose the YOLOv7-GS model, which is designed specifically for the identification of small UAVs in complex and low-altitude environments. This research primarily aims to improve the model’s detection capabilities for small UAVs in complex backgrounds. Enhancements were applied to the YOLOv7-tiny model, including adjustments to the sizes of prior boxes, incorporation of the InceptionNeXt module at the end of the neck section, and introduction of the SPPFCSPC-SR and Get-and-Send modules. These modifications aid in the preservation of details about small UAVs and heighten the model’s focus on them. The YOLOv7-GS model achieves commendable results on the DUT Anti-UAV and the Amateur Unmanned Air Vehicle Detection datasets and performs to be competitive against other mainstream algorithms.