# EDNet: Edge-Optimized Small Target Detection in UAV Imagery -- Faster Context Attention, Better Feature Fusion, and Hardware Acceleration

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.05885 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05885/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 16 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Jan 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.03118/) (2017)
- [Spatial Pyramid Pooling in Deep Convolutional Networks for Visual Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.4729/) (2014)
- [DETRs Beat YOLOs on Real-time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08069/) (2023)
- [YOLOv10: Real-Time End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14458/) (2024)
- [YOLOv9: Learning What You Want to Learn Using Programmable Gradient Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13616/) (2024)
- [YOLOv6: A Single-Stage Object Detection Framework for Industrial Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.02976/) (2022)
- [Detection and Tracking Meet Drones Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06303/) (2020)
- [Run, Don't Walk: Chasing Higher FLOPS for Faster Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03667/) (2023)
- [Poly Kernel Inception Network for Remote Sensing Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06258/) (2024)
- [Wise-IoU: Bounding Box Regression Loss with Dynamic Focusing Mechanism](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.10051/) (2023)
- [EdgeYOLO: An Edge-Real-Time Object Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07483/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Detecting small targets in drone imagery is challenging due to low resolution, complex backgrounds, and dynamic scenes. We propose EDNet, a novel edge-target detection framework built on an enhanced YOLOv10 architecture, optimized for real-time applications without post-processing. EDNet incorporates an XSmall detection head and a Cross Concat strategy to improve feature fusion and multi-scale context awareness for detecting tiny targets in diverse environments. Our unique C2f-FCA block employs Faster Context Attention to enhance feature extraction while reducing computational complexity. The WIoU loss function is employed for improved bounding box regression. With seven model sizes ranging from Tiny to XL, EDNet accommodates various deployment environments, enabling local real-time inference and ensuring data privacy. Notably, EDNet achieves up to a 5.6% gain in mAP@50 with significantly fewer parameters. On an iPhone 12, EDNet variants operate at speeds ranging from 16 to 55 FPS, providing a scalable and efficient solution for edge-based object detection in challenging drone imagery. The source code and pre-trained models are available at: https://github.com/zsniko/EDNet.