Breaking dimensional barriers in hyperspectral target detection: Atrous convolution with Gramian Angular field representations

• The one-dimensional nature of spectral sequence limits the information that can be extracted. • Gramian Angular Field is employed to mine the multidimensional relationship of spectral bands from two-dimensional view. • Atrous convolution is used instead of traditional convolution to convert one-dimensional to two-dimensional models. • Converts the redundancy of information between spectral bands into an advantage for detection. Hyperspectral images contain extensive spectral bands with rich spectral information that reflects object properties. Leveraging state-of-the-art deep learning techniques has proven to be effective in hyperspectral target detection. However, compared to two-dimensional matrix data, the one-dimensional nature of spectral sequence limits the information that can be extracted, posing a challenge for deep learning-based hyperspectral target detection methodologies. To address this issue, a novel hyperspectral target detection method employing atrous convolution with gramian angular field representations is proposed in this paper. This approach breaks the barrier between one-dimensional vector and two-dimensional matrix by gramian angular field, transforming the spectral sequences from one-dimensional vectors into two-dimensional matrices, enabling the exploration of multidimensional relationships within spectral band relations through an atrous convolution-based spectral feature extraction network. The proposed model transcends the traditional one-dimensional spectral target detection limitations, offering a new perspective for spectral-based hyperspectral target detection. Experimental results on four real-world hyperspectral datasets demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in detection performance, showcasing its potential for advancing hyperspectral target detection.