PhysDNet: Physics-Guided Decomposition Network of Side-Scan Sonar Imagery

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lei, Can, Rajani, Hayat, Gracias, Nuno, Garcia, Rafael, Wang, Huigang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lei, Can
Rajani, Hayat
Gracias, Nuno
Garcia, Rafael
Wang, Huigang
author_facet Lei, Can
Rajani, Hayat
Gracias, Nuno
Garcia, Rafael
Wang, Huigang
contents Side-scan sonar (SSS) imagery is widely used for seafloor mapping and underwater remote sensing, yet the measured intensity is strongly influenced by seabed reflectivity, terrain elevation, and acoustic path loss. This entanglement makes the imagery highly view-dependent and reduces the robustness of downstream analysis. In this letter, we present PhysDNet, a physics-guided multi-branch network that decouples SSS images into three interpretable fields: seabed reflectivity, terrain elevation, and propagation loss. By embedding the Lambertian reflection model, PhysDNet reconstructs sonar intensity from these components, enabling self-supervised training without ground-truth annotations. Experiments show that the decomposed representations preserve stable geological structures, capture physically consistent illumination and attenuation, and produce reliable shadow maps. These findings demonstrate that physics-guided decomposition provides a stable and interpretable domain for SSS analysis, improving both physical consistency and downstream tasks such as registration and shadow interpretation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19539
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PhysDNet: Physics-Guided Decomposition Network of Side-Scan Sonar Imagery
Lei, Can
Rajani, Hayat
Gracias, Nuno
Garcia, Rafael
Wang, Huigang
Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Side-scan sonar (SSS) imagery is widely used for seafloor mapping and underwater remote sensing, yet the measured intensity is strongly influenced by seabed reflectivity, terrain elevation, and acoustic path loss. This entanglement makes the imagery highly view-dependent and reduces the robustness of downstream analysis. In this letter, we present PhysDNet, a physics-guided multi-branch network that decouples SSS images into three interpretable fields: seabed reflectivity, terrain elevation, and propagation loss. By embedding the Lambertian reflection model, PhysDNet reconstructs sonar intensity from these components, enabling self-supervised training without ground-truth annotations. Experiments show that the decomposed representations preserve stable geological structures, capture physically consistent illumination and attenuation, and produce reliable shadow maps. These findings demonstrate that physics-guided decomposition provides a stable and interpretable domain for SSS analysis, improving both physical consistency and downstream tasks such as registration and shadow interpretation.
title PhysDNet: Physics-Guided Decomposition Network of Side-Scan Sonar Imagery
topic Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19539