# TriCLE: Tri-Modal Vision-Language Reasoning for Edge-Deployed Fine-Grained Clustering

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.04175 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.04175/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 20 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

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- [Fine-Grained Visual Classification of Aircraft](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1306.5151/) (2013)
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- [Deep Clustering for Unsupervised Learning of Visual Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.05520/) (2018)
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- [Pseudo-LiDAR from Visual Depth Estimation: Bridging the Gap in 3D Object Detection for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.07179/) (2018)
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- [YOLOv12: Attention-Centric Real-Time Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12524/) (2025)
- [TransPose: Keypoint Localization via Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.14214/) (2020)
- [R-LiViT: A LiDAR-Visual-Thermal Dataset Enabling Vulnerable Road User Focused Roadside Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17122/) (2025)
- [DSERT-RoLL: Robust Multi-Modal Perception for Diverse Driving Conditions with Stereo Event-RGB-Thermal Cameras, 4D Radar, and Dual-LiDAR](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03685/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Edge platforms used for aerial observation must interpret aircraft imagery under limited memory, limited compute, and intermittent connectivity. This setting is difficult for standard RGB-only recognition models and general-purpose vision-language models, especially when calibrated thermal and LiDAR aircraft data are unavailable. We present TriCLE, an application-oriented tri-modal vision-language system for aircraft taxonomic grouping under edge constraints. From a single RGB aircraft image, TriCLE generates a structure-preserving FLIR-style thermal view and a pseudo-LiDAR depth projection, then fuses the aligned views with task instructions in a compact Qwen3-VL backbone. The model is aligned to an expert aircraft taxonomy based on propulsion, airframe family, size, design era, and configuration, so its outputs reflect engineering-relevant similarity rather than only surface appearance. We evaluate supervised fine-tuning, rotation-preserving SFT, and three policy-alignment strategies: GRPO, GSPO, and DAPO. Sequence-level GSPO gives the strongest validation performance, reaching 88.33% validation accuracy and 0.91 weighted F1 on valid aircraft outputs. On a held-out aircraft test partition, GSPO achieves 78.00% accuracy and 0.793 weighted F1 while preserving 94.00% parseable output formatting. After 4-bit quantization and attention-memory optimization, the aligned 4B model fits an 8GB deployment target and processes each tri-modal triplet in 1.48 seconds. These results support TriCLE as a practical prototype for interpretable, edge-feasible aircraft grouping, while emphasizing the need for further validation on real aligned thermal and LiDAR sensor streams.