In view of the existence of remote sensing images with large variations in spatial resolution, small and dense objects, and the inability to determine the direction of motion, all these components make object detection from remote sensing images very challenging. In this paper, we propose a single-stage detection network based on YOLOv5. This method introduces the MS Transformer module at the end of the feature extraction network of the original network to enhance the feature extraction capability of the network model and integrates the Convolutional Block Attention Model (CBAM) to find the attention area in dense scenes. In addition, the YOLOv5 target detection network is improved by incorporating a rotation angle approach from the a priori frame design and the bounding box regression formulation to make it suitable for rotating frame-based detection scenarios. Finally, the weighted combination of the two difficult sample mining methods is used to improve the focal loss function, so as to improve the detection accuracy. The average accuracy of the test results of the improved algorithm on the DOTA data set is 77.01%, which is higher than the previous detection algorithm. Compared with the average detection accuracy of YOLOv5, the average detection accuracy is improved by 8.83%. The experimental results show that the algorithm has higher detection accuracy than other algorithms in remote sensing scenes.

For the classification of pole‐like objects (trees, lamp posts, traffic lights and traffic signs) in mobile laser scanning (MLS) point clouds, a hierarchical classification method is proposed. The method consists of three major steps. (1) The objects’ cylindrical column sections are detected based on the characteristics of arc‐like points using RANSAC after denoising. (2) These detected objects are roughly classified into trees and man‐made poles based on the azimuthal coverage of point clouds above the cylindrical column. (3) Eigenvalue analysis and the principal direction of the upper pole projections are used to differentiate lamp posts, traffic lights and traffic signs. Experimental analysis shows that the method can effectively identify different types of pole‐like objects.

The extraction of pavement damage information is one of the major difficulties in the application research of mobile laser scanning point cloud data. To address the problem of inaccurate detection results by using only relative distance to detect potholes, this paper proposes a novel pothole detection method that combines directed distance and skewed distribution. Firstly, the rapid positioning of the pothole is realized by the directed distance, which is calculated from the points and the local fitted plane. And monomerization and denoising of potential potholes are achieved by density clustering. Then, the new accurate plane is fitted by the surrounding pavement points of the potential pothole to obtain accurate directed distances. The negative skewed distribution of the directed distance histogram and the skewness coefficient are used for the accurate determination of the pothole. Finally, the three-dimensional geometric features of the pothole are extracted. Experiments were carried out on a road with poor road conditions. The experimental results validated the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method. It can achieve automatic detection of potholes with different shapes and deformation degrees, and has effectively improved the efficiency of automatic road inspection.

Road curb is one of the important components of road information, and its high-precision information is significant for the development of autonomous driving, intelligent transportation and smart cities. A mobile laser scanning (MLS) system can acquire high-precision and high-density road three-dimensional (3D) point clouds data, which has the advantages of high efficiency, low cost and non-contact.