Applications of GANs to Aid Target Detection in SAR Operations: A Systematic Literature Review

Research on unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) for search and rescue (SAR) missions is widespread due to its cost-effectiveness and enhancement of security and flexibility in operations. However, a significant challenge arises from the quality of sensors, terrain variability, noise, and the sizes of targets in the images and videos taken by them. Generative adversarial networks (GANs), introduced by Ian Goodfellow, among their variations, can offer excellent solutions for improving the quality of sensors, regarding super-resolution, noise removal, and other image processing issues. To identify new insights and guidance on how to apply GANs to detect living beings in SAR operations, a PRISMA-oriented systematic literature review was conducted to analyze primary studies that explore the usage of GANs for edge or object detection in images captured by drones. The results demonstrate the utilization of GAN algorithms in the realm of image enhancement for object detection, along with the metrics employed for tool validation. These findings provide insights on how to apply or modify them to aid in target identification during search stages.