# DRWKV: Focusing on Object Edges for Low-Light Image Enhancement

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18594 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18594/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 33 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [SGDR: Stochastic Gradient Descent with Warm Restarts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03983/) (2016)
- [ByteTrack: Multi-Object Tracking by Associating Every Detection Box](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06864/) (2021)
- [Deep Retinex Decomposition for Low-Light Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.04560/) (2018)
- [Performance Measures and a Data Set for Multi-Target, Multi-Camera Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.01775/) (2016)
- [HOTA: A Higher Order Metric for Evaluating Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.07736/) (2020)
- [Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation for Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06826/) (2020)
- [EnlightenGAN: Deep Light Enhancement without Paired Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.06972/) (2019)
- [Kindling the Darkness: A Practical Low-light Image Enhancer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04161/) (2019)
- [MambaIR: A Simple Baseline for Image Restoration with State-Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15648/) (2024)
- [Observation-Centric SORT: Rethinking SORT for Robust Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14360/) (2022)
- [BoT-SORT: Robust Associations Multi-Pedestrian Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14651/) (2022)
- [Retinexformer: One-stage Retinex-based Transformer for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06705/) (2023)
- [LLNet: A Deep Autoencoder Approach to Natural Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.03995/) (2015)
- [StrongSORT: Make DeepSORT Great Again](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.13514/) (2022)
- [Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancement: A Benchmark and Transformer-Based Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.11548/) (2022)
- [Deep OC-SORT: Multi-Pedestrian Tracking by Adaptive Re-Identification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11813/) (2023)
- [R2RNet: Low-light Image Enhancement via Real-low to Real-normal Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.14501/) (2021)
- [Vision-RWKV: Efficient and Scalable Visual Perception with RWKV-Like Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02308/) (2024)
- [You Only Need 90K Parameters to Adapt Light: A Light Weight Transformer for Image Enhancement and Exposure Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.14871/) (2022)
- [Hybrid-SORT: Weak Cues Matter for Online Multi-Object Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00783/) (2023)
- [Retinexmamba: Retinex-based Mamba for Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.03349/) (2024)
- [MambaLLIE: Implicit Retinex-Aware Low Light Enhancement with Global-then-Local State Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16105/) (2024)
- [Wave-Mamba: Wavelet State Space Model for Ultra-High-Definition Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01276/) (2024)
- [Correlation Matching Transformation Transformers for UHD Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00629/) (2024)
- [EDTER: Edge Detection with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08566/) (2022)
- [All-Day Object Tracking for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.08446/) (2021)
- [Diffusion in the Dark: A Diffusion Model for Low-Light Text Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04291/) (2023)
- [Double Domain Guided Real-Time Low-Light Image Enhancement for Ultra-High-Definition Transportation Surveillance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08382/) (2023)
- [DyEdgeGAT: Dynamic Edge via Graph Attention for Early Fault Detection in IIoT Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03761/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Bridging Robustness and Efficiency: Real-Time Low-Light Enhancement via Attention U-Net GAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06518/) (2026)
- [EvLIR: Learning Illumination Residuals from Ordered Events for Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29430/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Low-light image enhancement remains a challenging task, particularly in preserving object edge continuity and fine structural details under extreme illumination degradation. In this paper, we propose a novel model, DRWKV (Detailed Receptance Weighted Key Value), which integrates our proposed Global Edge Retinex (GER) theory, enabling effective decoupling of illumination and edge structures for enhanced edge fidelity. Secondly, we introduce Evolving WKV Attention, a spiral-scanning mechanism that captures spatial edge continuity and models irregular structures more effectively. Thirdly, we design the Bilateral Spectrum Aligner (Bi-SAB) and a tailored MS2-Loss to jointly align luminance and chrominance features, improving visual naturalness and mitigating artifacts. Extensive experiments on five LLIE benchmarks demonstrate that DRWKV achieves leading performance in PSNR, SSIM, and NIQE while maintaining low computational complexity. Furthermore, DRWKV enhances downstream performance in low-light multi-object tracking tasks, validating its generalization capabilities.