SCL-YOLOv11: A Lightweight Object Detection Network for Low-Illumination Environments

Object detection in low-light environments has been widely recognized as a critical research direction in the field of computer vision. In response to the challenges of reduced detection accuracy and high edge-deployment costs encountered by mainstream single-stage object detection models under low-light conditions, this paper proposes a lightweight object detection network based on YOLOv11, integrates StarNet, C3k2-Star, and a lightweight detail-enhanced convolution and shared convolutional detection head(LSDECD), so called SCL-YOLOv11 herein. First, the StarNet architecture is introduced into the Backbone to enhance the extraction of shallow image features and significantly reduce computational complexity. Next, Star Blocks from the StarNet framework are employed to optimize the C3k2 module in the Neck stage, thereby improving the localization accuracy of deep features without increasing network complexity. Meanwhile, the Minimum Point Distance based IoU(MPDIoU) loss function is adopted to mitigate gradient explosion risks while enhancing detection precision. Furthermore, a lightweight detail-enhancement convolution layer and a shared-convolution detection head are designed to improve the model’s capability in capturing fine-grained details. Finally, a knowledge distillation procedure is conducted using SCL-YOLOv11 as the student model and YOLOv8 as the teacher model, ensuring that the proposed SCL-YOLOv11 model achieves both low complexity and excellent detection performance. Experimental results on the ExDark dataset demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves 67.6% mAP@0.5 and 42.4% mAP@0.5:0.95, while reducing parameter count by 38.5% and computational cost by 25.4%. Consequently, the proposed model is highly suitable for edge deployment in industrial applications and embedded development systems.