# Suitability of KANs for Computer Vision: A preliminary investigation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09087 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09087/

## Key facts

- Cited by 34 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 35 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [Going Deeper with Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.4842/) (2014)
- [SegNet: A Deep Convolutional Encoder-Decoder Architecture for Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.00561/) (2015)
- [Deep Learning in Neural Networks: An Overview](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1404.7828/) (2014)
- [KAN: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.19756/) (2024)
- [U-KAN Makes Strong Backbone for Medical Image Segmentation and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02918/) (2024)
- [Wav-KAN: Wavelet Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12832/) (2024)
- [Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) for Time Series Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.08790/) (2024)
- [The Kolmogorov-Arnold representation theorem revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15884/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [KAN 2.0: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks Meet Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10205/) (2024)
- [Adaptive Training of Grid-Dependent Physics-Informed Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17611/) (2024)
- [On the expressiveness and spectral bias of KANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01803/) (2024)
- [rKAN: Rational Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14495/) (2024)
- [Finite basis Kolmogorov-Arnold networks: domain decomposition for data-driven and physics-informed problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19662/) (2024)
- [Reduced Effectiveness of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks on Functions with Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14882/) (2024)
- [PointNet with KAN versus PointNet with MLP for 3D Classification and Segmentation of Point Sets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10084/) (2024)
- [DropKAN: Regularizing KANs by masking post-activations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.13044/) (2024)
- [Generalization Bounds and Model Complexity for Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08026/) (2024)
- [Multifidelity Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14764/) (2024)
- [CF-KAN: Kolmogorov-Arnold Network-based Collaborative Filtering to Mitigate Catastrophic Forgetting in Recommender Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05878/) (2024)
- [DKL-KAN: Scalable Deep Kernel Learning using Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21176/) (2024)
- [KAN versus MLP on Irregular or Noisy Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07906/) (2024)
- [Kolmogorov-Arnold Recurrent Network for Short Term Load Forecasting Across Diverse Consumers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.06965/) (2025)
- [Rethinking the Function of Neurons in KANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20667/) (2024)
- [KAN we improve on HEP classification tasks? Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks applied to an LHC physics example](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02743/) (2024)
- [Incorporating Arbitrary Matrix Group Equivariance into KANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.00435/) (2024)
- [On Training of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.05296/) (2024)
- [GNN-SKAN: Harnessing the Power of SwallowKAN to Advance Molecular Representation Learning with GNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01018/) (2024)
- [Physics-informed KAN PointNet: Deep learning for simultaneous solutions to inverse problems in incompressible flow on numerous irregular geometries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06327/) (2025)
- [Conformalized-KANs: Uncertainty Quantification with Coverage Guarantees for Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) in Scientific Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15240/) (2025)
- [EHCTNet: Enhanced Hybrid of CNN and Transformer Network for Remote Sensing Image Change Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.01238/) (2025)
- [Kolmogorov-Arnold Attention: Is Learnable Attention Better For Vision Transformers?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10632/) (2025)
- [Pushing the Performance of Synthetic Speech Detection with Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks and Self-Supervised Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14153/) (2025)
- [Kaninfradet3D:A Road-side Camera-LiDAR Fusion 3D Perception Model based on Nonlinear Feature Extraction and Intrinsic Correlation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15814/) (2024)
- [KAT to KANs: A Review of Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks and the Neural Leap Forward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10622/) (2024)
- [Advancing Out-of-Distribution Detection via Local Neuroplasticity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15833/) (2025)
- [RecKAN: Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks with a Learnable Recursive Polynomial Basis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.01729/) (2026)
- [DP-KAN: Differentially Private Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.12569/) (2024)
- [Semi-KAN: KAN Provides an Effective Representation for Semi-Supervised Learning in Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14983/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) introduce a paradigm of neural modeling that implements learnable functions on the edges of the networks, diverging from the traditional node-centric activations in neural networks. This work assesses the applicability and efficacy of KANs in visual modeling, focusing on fundamental recognition and segmentation tasks. We mainly analyze the performance and efficiency of different network architectures built using KAN concepts along with conventional building blocks of convolutional and linear layers, enabling a comparative analysis with the conventional models. Our findings are aimed at contributing to understanding the potential of KANs in computer vision, highlighting both their strengths and areas for further research. Our evaluation point toward the fact that while KAN-based architectures perform in line with the original claims, it may often be important to employ more complex functions on the network edges to retain the performance advantage of KANs on more complex visual data.