PODB: A learning-based polarimetric object detection benchmark for road scenes in adverse weather conditions

Due to its insensitivity to light intensity and the capability to capture multidimensional information, polarimetric imaging technology has been proven to have advantages over traditional intensity-based imaging techniques for object detection tasks in adverse environmental conditions, particularly in road traffic scenarios. Recently, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, deep learning (DL)-powered object detection techniques can further enhance recognition accuracy and algorithm robustness. This improvement is made possible by the ability of DL technology to leverage large datasets and extract deeper levels of target-specific features. However, constructing large-scale polarimetric datasets poses challenges as obtaining polarimetric information requires multiple captures of intensity images. In other words, the workload is several times higher compared to traditional imaging techniques. To address the current scarcity of polarimetric datasets and evaluate the practical performance of various algorithms on polarimetric datasets, this paper proposes a Polarimetric Object Detection Benchmark (PODB) dataset. The PODB provides an integrated quality evaluation framework for DL-based object detection algorithms in complex road scenes by incorporating polarimetric imaging. Besides, we conducted extensive object detection experiments using the PODB, which allowed for a comprehensive validation and performance evaluation of effective benchmark algorithms. Furthermore, a physics-based multi-scale image fusion cascaded object detection neural network model is proposed. By combining the multidimensional information provided by polarized images with an adaptive learning multi-decision object detection neural network model, the recognition accuracy of complex road scenes in adverse weather conditions has been improved by approximately 10%. Additionally, we anticipate that PODB will serve as an effective platform for evaluating and comparing the performance of object detection algorithms, as well as providing researchers with a baseline for future studies in developing new DL-based methods.