Feature Reduction Networks: A Convolution Neural Network-Based Approach to Enhance Image Dehazing

Abstract

Image dehazing represents a dynamic area of research in computer vision. With the exponential development of deep learning, particularly convolutional neural networks (CNNs), innovative and effective image dehazing techniques have surfaced. However, in stark contrast to the majority of computer vision tasks employing CNNs, the output from a dehazing model is often treated as uninformative noise, even though the model’s filters are engineered to extract pertinent features from the images. The standard approach of end-to-end models for dehazing involves noise removal from the hazy image to obtain a clear one. Consequently, the model’s dehazing capacity diminishes, as the noise is progressively filtered out throughout the propagation phase. This leads to the conception of the feature reduction network (FRNet), which is a distinctive CNN architecture that incrementally eliminates informative features, thereby resulting in the output of noise. Our experimental results indicate that the CNN-driven FRNet surpasses previous state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index measure (SSIM) evaluation metrics. This highlights the effectiveness of the FRNet across various image dehazing datasets. With its reduced overhead, the CNN-based FRNet demonstrates superior performance over current SOTA methods, thereby affirming the efficacy of CNNs in image dehazing tasks.