Improved lightweight infrared road target detection method based on YOLOv8

Infrared-based road scene object detection algorithms often face issues with excessive parameters and computational demands, making them incompatible with edge devices having constrained computational capabilities. This paper introduces an enhanced lightweight infrared-based road object detection algorithm based on YOLOv8n. Firstly, a streamlined network architecture is devised by merging YOLOv8n’s C2f module with PConv, creating a lighter module and reducing the neural network’s downsampling rate of infrared images. This strategy reduces redundant computations and memory access, preventing the loss of fine details in infrared images caused by deep convolutional neural networks. Additionally, the model’s accuracy in detecting infrared targets is significantly enhanced through the integration of the coordinate attention mechanism. Finally, replacing CIoU with Wise-IoU for bounding box regression in YOLOv8n accelerates the model’s convergence. Empirical findings indicate that in contrast to the YOLOv8n algorithm, the optimized model showcases a 34.17 % reduction in model size, a 40.35 % decrease in parameters, and a 4.8 % increase in average detection accuracy. This enhanced algorithm not only achieves a lightweight profile but also delivers superior performance on embedded edge devices.