# IncSAR: A Dual Fusion Incremental Learning Framework for SAR Target Recognition

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.05820 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.05820/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 32 of its 73 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 32)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Densely Connected Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.06993/) (2016)
- [Training data-efficient image transformers & distillation through attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.12877/) (2020)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Learning to Prompt for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.08654/) (2021)
- [Dark Experience for General Continual Learning: a Strong, Simple Baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07211/) (2020)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Continual Learning: Theory, Method and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00487/) (2023)
- [CODA-Prompt: COntinual Decomposed Attention-based Prompting for Rehearsal-Free Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13218/) (2022)
- [Scaling & Shifting Your Features: A New Baseline for Efficient Model Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08823/) (2022)
- [TinyViT: Fast Pretraining Distillation for Small Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.10666/) (2022)
- [FOSTER: Feature Boosting and Compression for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04662/) (2022)
- [Revisiting Class-Incremental Learning with Pre-Trained Models: Generalizability and Adaptivity are All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07338/) (2023)
- [SLCA: Slow Learner with Classifier Alignment for Continual Learning on a Pre-trained Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05118/) (2023)
- [RanPAC: Random Projections and Pre-trained Models for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02251/) (2023)
- [A Model or 603 Exemplars: Towards Memory-Efficient Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13218/) (2022)
- [Continual Learning with Pre-Trained Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16386/) (2024)
- [FeTrIL: Feature Translation for Exemplar-Free Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13131/) (2022)
- [FeCAM: Exploiting the Heterogeneity of Class Distributions in Exemplar-Free Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.14062/) (2023)
- [Learning without Forgetting for Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19270/) (2023)
- [PILOT: A Pre-Trained Model-Based Continual Learning Toolbox](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07117/) (2023)
- [Omni-Dimensional Dynamic Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.07947/) (2022)
- [First Session Adaptation: A Strong Replay-Free Baseline for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13199/) (2023)
- [Weighted Ensemble Models Are Strong Continual Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08977/) (2023)
- [Divide and not forget: Ensemble of selectively trained experts in Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10191/) (2024)
- [Tensor Robust Principal Component Analysis: Exact Recovery of Corrupted Low-Rank Tensors via Convex Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04181/) (2017)
- [A Dual Prompt Learning Framework for Few-Shot Dialogue State Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05780/) (2022)

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

- [Few-Shot Class-Incremental Learning For Efficient SAR Automatic Target Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19565/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning techniques have achieved significant success in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) target recognition using predefined datasets in static scenarios. However, real-world applications demand that models incrementally learn new information without forgetting previously acquired knowledge. The challenge of catastrophic forgetting, where models lose past knowledge when adapting to new tasks, remains a critical issue. In this paper, we introduce IncSAR, an incremental learning framework designed to tackle catastrophic forgetting in SAR target recognition. IncSAR combines the power of a Vision Transformer (ViT) and a custom-designed Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) in a dual-branch architecture, integrated via a late-fusion strategy. Additionally, we explore the use of TinyViT to reduce computational complexity and propose an attention mechanism to dynamically enhance feature representation. To mitigate the speckle noise inherent in SAR images, we employ a denoising module based on a neural network approximation of Robust Principal Component Analysis (RPCA), leveraging a simple neural network for efficient noise reduction in SAR imagery. Moreover, a random projection layer improves the linear separability of features, and a variant of Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) decorrelates extracted class prototypes for better generalization. Extensive experiments on the MSTAR, SAR-AIRcraft-1.0, and OpenSARShip benchmark datasets demonstrate that IncSAR significantly outperforms state-of-the-art approaches, achieving a 99.63% average accuracy and a 0.33% performance drop, representing an 89% improvement in retention compared to existing techniques. The source code is available at https://github.com/geokarant/IncSAR.