YOLO-SG: Seafloor Topography Unit Recognition and Segmentation Algorithm Based on Lightweight Upsampling Operator and Attention Mechanisms

The recognition and segmentation of seafloor topography play a crucial role in marine science research and engineering applications. However, traditional methods for seafloor topography recognition and segmentation face several issues, such as poor capability in analyzing complex terrains and limited generalization ability. To address these challenges, this study introduces the SG-MKD dataset (Submarine Geomorphology Dataset—Seamounts, Sea Knolls, Submarine Depressions) and proposes YOLO-SG (You Only Look Once—Submarine Geomorphology), an algorithm for seafloor topographic unit recognition and segmentation that leverages a lightweight upsampling operator and attention mechanisms. The SG-MKD dataset provides instance segmentation annotations for three types of seafloor topographic units—seamounts, sea knolls, and submarine depressions—across a total of 419 images. YOLO-SG is an optimized version of the YOLOv8l-Segment model, incorporating a convolutional block attention module in the backbone network to enhance feature extraction. Additionally, it integrates a lightweight, general upsampling operator to create a new feature fusion network, thereby improving the model’s ability to fuse and represent features. Experimental results demonstrate that YOLO-SG significantly outperforms the original YOLOv8l-Segment, with a 14.7% increase in mean average precision. Furthermore, inference experiments conducted across various research areas highlight the model’s strong generalization capability.