Exploring Deep Learning-Based Architecture, Strategies, Applications and Current Trends in Generic Object Detection: A Comprehensive Review

Object detection is a fundamental but challenging issue in the field of generic image analysis; it plays an important role in a wide range of applications and has been receiving special attention in recent years. Although there are enomerous methods exist, an in-depth review of the literature concerning generic detection remains. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of recent advances in visual object detection with deep learning. Covering about 300 publications that we survey 1) region proposal-based object detection methods such as R-CNN, SPPnet, Fast R-CNN, Faster R-CNN, Mask RCN, RFCN, FPN, 2) classification/regression base object detection methods such as YOLO(v2 to v5), SSD, DSSD, RetinaNet, RefineDet, CornerNet, EfficientDet, M2Det 3) Some latest detectors such as, relation network for object detection, DCN v2, NAS FPN. Moreover, five publicly available benchmark datasets and their standard evaluation metrics are also discussed. We mainly focus on the application of deep learning architectures to five major applications, namely Object Detection in Surveillance, Military, Transportation, Medical, and Daily Life. In the survey, we cover a variety of factors affecting the detection performance in detail, such as i) a wide range of object categories and intra-class variations, ii) limited storage capacity and computational power. Finally, we finish the survey by identifying fifteen current trends and promising direction for future research.