# DB-KAUNet: An Adaptive Dual Branch Kolmogorov-Arnold UNet for Retinal Vessel Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.01657 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.01657/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 17 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 17 of 17)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [V-Net: Fully Convolutional Neural Networks for Volumetric Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04797/) (2016)
- [UNet++: A Nested U-Net Architecture for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.10165/) (2018)
- [Deformable Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06211/) (2017)
- [Attention U-Net: Learning Where to Look for the Pancreas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03999/) (2018)
- [Dual Attention Network for Scene Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.02983/) (2018)
- [Sigmoid-Weighted Linear Units for Neural Network Function Approximation in Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.03118/) (2017)
- [Deformable ConvNets v2: More Deformable, Better Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11168/) (2018)
- [InternImage: Exploring Large-Scale Vision Foundation Models with Deformable Convolutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05778/) (2022)
- [U-KAN Makes Strong Backbone for Medical Image Segmentation and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02918/) (2024)
- [DUNet: A deformable network for retinal vessel segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.01206/) (2018)
- [Pad'e Activation Units: End-to-end Learning of Flexible Activation Functions in Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.06732/) (2019)
- [Squeeze-and-Attention Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.03402/) (2019)
- [Efficient Deformable ConvNets: Rethinking Dynamic and Sparse Operator for Vision Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06197/) (2024)
- [DO-Conv: Depthwise Over-parameterized Convolutional Layer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.12030/) (2020)
- [LDConv: Linear deformable convolution for improving convolutional neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.11587/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate segmentation of retinal vessels is crucial for the clinical diagnosis of numerous ophthalmic and systemic diseases. However, traditional Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) methods exhibit inherent limitations, struggling to capture long-range dependencies and complex nonlinear relationships. To address the above limitations, an Adaptive Dual Branch Kolmogorov-Arnold UNet (DB-KAUNet) is proposed for retinal vessel segmentation. In DB-KAUNet, we design a Heterogeneous Dual-Branch Encoder (HDBE) that features parallel CNN and Transformer pathways. The HDBE strategically interleaves standard CNN and Transformer blocks with novel KANConv and KAT blocks, enabling the model to form a comprehensive feature representation. To optimize feature processing, we integrate several critical components into the HDBE. First, a Cross-Branch Channel Interaction (CCI) module is embedded to facilitate efficient interaction of channel features between the parallel pathways. Second, an attention-based Spatial Feature Enhancement (SFE) module is employed to enhance spatial features and fuse the outputs from both branches. Building upon the SFE module, an advanced Spatial Feature Enhancement with Geometrically Adaptive Fusion (SFE-GAF) module is subsequently developed. In the SFE-GAF module, adaptive sampling is utilized to focus on true vessel morphology precisely. The adaptive process strengthens salient vascular features while significantly reducing background noise and computational overhead. Extensive experiments on the DRIVE, STARE, and CHASE_DB1 datasets validate that DB-KAUNet achieves leading segmentation performance and demonstrates exceptional robustness.