# Improved Dense Nested Attention Network Based on Transformer for Infrared Small Target Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.08747 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08747/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [SSD: Single Shot MultiBox Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02325/) (2015)
- [Fast R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.08083/) (2015)
- [Swin Transformer V2: Scaling Up Capacity and Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09883/) (2021)
- [YOLOv7: Trainable bag-of-freebies sets new state-of-the-art for real-time object detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.02696/) (2022)
- [Dice Loss for Data-imbalanced NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.02855/) (2019)
- [Dense Nested Attention Network for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00487/) (2021)
- [UIU-Net: U-Net in U-Net for Infrared Small Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00968/) (2022)
- [Attentional Local Contrast Networks for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08573/) (2020)
- [On the Integration of Self-Attention and Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14556/) (2021)
- [Mapping Degeneration Meets Label Evolution: Learning Infrared Small Target Detection with Single Point Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01484/) (2023)
- [MTU-Net: Multi-level TransUNet for Space-based Infrared Tiny Ship Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13756/) (2022)
- [One-Stage Cascade Refinement Networks for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.08472/) (2022)
- [AGPCNet: Attention-Guided Pyramid Context Networks for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03580/) (2021)
- [Local Patch Network with Global Attention for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.06054/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Leveraging Language Prior for Infrared Small Target Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13113/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Infrared small target detection based on deep learning offers unique advantages in separating small targets from complex and dynamic backgrounds. However, the features of infrared small targets gradually weaken as the depth of convolutional neural network (CNN) increases. To address this issue, we propose a novel method for detecting infrared small targets called improved dense nested attention network (IDNANet), which is based on the transformer architecture. We preserve the dense nested structure of dense nested attention network (DNANet) and introduce the Swin-transformer during feature extraction stage to enhance the continuity of features. Furthermore, we integrate the ACmix attention structure into the dense nested structure to enhance the features of intermediate layers. Additionally, we design a weighted dice binary cross-entropy (WD-BCE) loss function to mitigate the negative impact of foreground-background imbalance in the samples. Moreover, we develop a dataset specifically for infrared small targets, called BIT-SIRST. The dataset comprises a significant amount of real-world targets and manually annotated labels, as well as synthetic data and corresponding labels. We have evaluated the effectiveness of our method through experiments conducted on public datasets. In comparison to other state-of-the-art methods, our approach outperforms in terms of probability of detection (Pd), false-alarm rate (Fa), and mean intersection of union (mIoU). The mIoU reaches 90.89% on the NUDT-SIRST dataset and 79.72% on the SIRST dataset. The BIT-SIRST dataset and codes are available openly at hrefhttps://github.com/EdwardBao1006/bitsirstcolor[HTML]B22222https://github.com/EdwardBao1006/bitsirst.