A Sample Augmentation Method for Side-Scan Sonar Full-Class Images That Can Be Used for Detection and Segmentation

In order to solve the problems of small samples, acquisition difficulties, under-representation and labeling difficulties in object detection, recognition and segmentation tasks for underwater all-category targets based on sonar images and deep learning methods. we propose a side-scan sonar full-class image sample augmentation method suitable for multi-task scenarios. Based on the superior image generation ability of the diffusion model, we use transfer learning to fine-tune the optical pre-trained model to build a side-scan sonar image generation model. Then, for the object detection task and semantic segmentation task, we use the image content and target shape as guidance information to guide the generation results of the diffusion model respectively. Meanwhile, proposed a mask synthesis method for SSS waterfall image generation based on the working principle of side-scan sonar. The synthesized mask images are used to guide the generation of side-scan sonar waterfall images. Finally, the underwater object detection and segmentation models are trained on the generated data. The experiment results show that training a model with generated data can be effective in improving accuracy.