# Robust Physical Adversarial Patches Using Dynamically Optimized Clusters

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18656 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18656/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 45 of its 65 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [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)
- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.06083/) (2017)
- [Intriguing properties of neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6199/) (2013)
- [Towards Evaluating the Robustness of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.04644/) (2016)
- [Adversarial examples in the physical world](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.02533/) (2016)
- [YOLO9000: Better, Faster, Stronger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.08242/) (2016)
- [DeepFool: a simple and accurate method to fool deep neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04599/) (2015)
- [Adversarial Examples Are Not Bugs, They Are Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02175/) (2019)
- [The Limitations of Deep Learning in Adversarial Settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.07528/) (2015)
- [Distillation as a Defense to Adversarial Perturbations against Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.04508/) (2015)
- [Adversarial Examples Are Not Easily Detected: Bypassing Ten Detection Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07263/) (2017)
- [Countering Adversarial Images using Input Transformations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00117/) (2017)
- [Adversarial Patch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.09665/) (2017)
- [Feature Squeezing: Detecting Adversarial Examples in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01155/) (2017)
- [On Evaluating Adversarial Robustness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.06705/) (2019)
- [Adversarial Examples for Semantic Segmentation and Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08603/) (2017)
- [Fooling automated surveillance cameras: adversarial patches to attack person detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.08653/) (2019)
- [Physical Adversarial Examples for Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.07769/) (2018)
- [AdvHat: Real-world adversarial attack on ArcFace Face ID system](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08705/) (2019)
- [Making an Invisibility Cloak: Real World Adversarial Attacks on Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.14667/) (2019)
- [Adversarial Texture for Fooling Person Detectors in the Physical World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.03373/) (2022)
- [Adversarial Sticker: A Stealthy Attack Method in the Physical World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06728/) (2021)
- [Superpixel Sampling Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10174/) (2018)
- [Superpixel Segmentation with Fully Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.12929/) (2020)
- [Physical Adversarial Attack meets Computer Vision: A Decade Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15179/) (2022)
- [End-to-End Learnable Geometric Vision by Backpropagating PnP Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06043/) (2019)
- [Defensive Distillation is Not Robust to Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.04311/) (2016)
- [T-SEA: Transfer-based Self-Ensemble Attack on Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09773/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Physical adversarial attacks on deep learning systems is concerning due to the ease of deploying such attacks, usually by placing an adversarial patch in a scene to manipulate the outcomes of a deep learning model. Training such patches typically requires regularization that improves physical realizability (e.g., printability, smoothness) and/or robustness to real-world variability (e.g. deformations, viewing angle, noise). One type of variability that has received little attention is scale variability. When a patch is rescaled, either digitally through downsampling/upsampling or physically through changing imaging distances, interpolation-induced color mixing occurs. This smooths out pixel values, resulting in a loss of high-frequency patterns and degrading the adversarial signal. To address this, we present a novel superpixel-based regularization method that guides patch optimization to scale-resilient structures. Our ap proach employs the Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (SLIC) algorithm to dynamically cluster pixels in an adversarial patch during optimization. The Implicit Function Theorem is used to backpropagate gradients through SLIC to update the superpixel boundaries and color. This produces patches that maintain their structure over scale and are less susceptible to interpolation losses. Our method achieves greater performance in the digital domain, and when realized physically, these performance gains are preserved, leading to improved physical performance. Real-world performance was objectively assessed using a novel physical evaluation protocol that utilizes screens and cardboard cut-outs to systematically vary real-world conditions.