Delving into YOLO Object Detection Models: Insights into Adversarial Robustness

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive study of the security of YOLO (You Only Look Once) model series for object detection, emphasizing their evolution, technical innovations, and performance across the COCO dataset. The robustness of YOLO models under adversarial attacks and image corruption, offering insights into their resilience and adaptability, is analyzed in depth. As real-time object detection plays an increasingly vital role in applications such as autonomous driving, security, and surveillance, this review aims to clarify the strengths and limitations of each YOLO iteration, serving as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners aiming to optimize model selection and deployment in dynamic, real-world environments. The results reveal that YOLOX models, particularly their large variants, exhibit superior robustness compared to other YOLO versions, maintaining higher accuracy under challenging conditions. Our findings serve as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners aiming to optimize YOLO models for dynamic and adversarial real-world environments while guiding future research toward developing more resilient object detection systems.