AI-Driven Recognition and Sustainable Preservation of Ancient Murals: The DKR-YOLO Framework

This paper introduces DKR-YOLO, an advanced deep learning framework designed to empower the digital preservation and sustainable management of ancient mural heritage. Building upon YOLOv8, DKR-YOLO integrates innovative components—including the DySnake Conv layer for refined feature extraction and an Adaptive Convolutional Kernel Warehouse to optimize representation—addressing challenges posed by intricate details, diverse artistic styles, and mural degradation. The network’s architecture further incorporates a Residual Feature Augmentation (RFA)-enhanced FPN (RE-FPN) and Efficient Channel Attention (ECA), prioritizing the most critical visual features and enhancing interpretability. Extensive experiments on mural datasets demonstrate that DKR-YOLO achieves a 43.6% reduction in FLOPs, a 3.7% increase in accuracy, and a 5.1% improvement in mAP compared to baseline models. This performance, combined with an emphasis on robustness and interpretability, supports more inclusive and accessible applications of AI for cultural institutions—including small museums and local heritage organizations—thereby fostering broader participation and equity in digital heritage preservation.