Abstract: In view of the low underwater optical image resolution and the color distortion in underwater target detection, this paper proposes an underwater target detection method based on attention mechanism. According to the most representative visual attention model (Itti model), in the feature extraction stage, this paper introduces the multiscale Retinex algorithm to restore and enhance the images’ color information. Through the experiment to get a suitable enhancement factor of the multiscale Retinex algorithm, this paper constructs a new suitable target detection method for the specific underwater environment. Experimental results show that the algorithm can effectively detect the target and complete target areas can be obtained.

Key words: underwater images, target detection, Retinex, attention mechanism