Integrating EnlightenGAN for enhancing car logo detection under challenging lighting conditions

Abstract Detecting small objects in challenging lighting conditions is a critical task with broad applications in computer vision, surveillance, and medical imaging. Small objects are especially vulnerable to detection errors due to their size and the significant impact of varying lighting conditions, such as low-light environments or high glare. Furthermore, the lack of a benchmark dataset that accurately simulates real-world scenarios makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of detection models in such conditions. In the proposed paper, we address these challenges by developing a comprehensive dataset specifically designed for car logo detection under diverse and challenging lighting environments. The dataset incorporates variations in lighting, viewing angles, and object scales to replicate real-world conditions. We also introduce a detection pipeline integrating EnlightenGAN for low-light image enhancement, which preserves fine details and textures, and YOLOv7 and YOLOv8 for improved detection accuracy. By enhancing image quality and refining object detection models, our approach significantly boosts the detection of small car logos, even in challenging lighting scenarios where traditional models tend to fail. Experimental results show that YOLOv8 outperforms YOLOv7 by approximately 7%, with YOLOv8 achieving a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 73.3% on the augmented dataset compared to 68.4% for the original dataset and 67.2% for the processed images. These results validate the effectiveness of GAN-based enhancement techniques in preserving small object details and improving detection performance. Additionally, introducing a new dataset and benchmark provides a valuable resource for future research in small object detection under complex lighting conditions.