{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,19]],"date-time":"2026-09-19T17:54:53Z","timestamp":1789840493918,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"24","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,11]],"date-time":"2025-12-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1765411200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"the Basic Scientific Research Expenses of Central Universities","award":["ZJ2023-012"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ZJ2023-012"]}]},{"name":"the Basic Scientific Research Expenses of Central Universities","award":["24CAFUC03018"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["24CAFUC03018"]}]},{"name":"the Key Laboratory of Flight Techniques and Flight Safety","award":["FZ2025ZX17"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FZ2025ZX17"]}]},{"name":"the Key Laboratory of Flight Techniques and Flight Safety","award":["FZ2025ZX32"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["FZ2025ZX32"]}]},{"name":"the Sichuan Provincial Youth Science and Technology Foundation","award":["2023NSFSC0958"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2023NSFSC0958"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) play vital roles in traffic surveillance, disaster management, and border security, highlighting the importance of reliable infrared\u2013visible image detection under complex illumination conditions. However, UAV-based infrared\u2013visible detection still faces challenges in multi-scale target recognition, robustness to lighting variations, and efficient cross-modal information utilization. To address these issues, this study proposes a lightweight Dual-modality Adaptive Pyramid Transformer (DAP) module integrated into the YOLOv8 framework. The DAP module employs a hierarchical self-attention mechanism and a residual fusion structure to achieve adaptive multi-scale representation and cross-modal semantic alignment while preserving modality-specific features. This design enables effective feature fusion with reduced computational cost, enhancing detection accuracy in complex environments. Experiments on the DroneVehicle and LLVIP datasets demonstrate that the proposed DAP-based YOLOv8 achieves mAP50:95 scores of 61.2% and 62.1%, respectively, outperforming conventional methods. The results validate the capability of the DAP module to optimize cross-modal feature interaction and improve UAV real-time infrared\u2013visible target detection, offering a practical and efficient solution for UAV applications such as traffic monitoring and disaster response.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s25247541","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,11]],"date-time":"2025-12-11T14:30:17Z","timestamp":1765463417000},"page":"7541","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["A Dual-Modal Adaptive Pyramid Transformer Algorithm for UAV Cross-Modal Object Detection"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"25","author":[{"given":"Qiqin","family":"Li","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5528-6339","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ming","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"},{"name":"School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China"},{"name":"Sichuan Province Engineering Technology Research Center of General Aircraft Maintenance, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaoqiang","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-1039-2867","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nannan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Luoyang College, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Luoyang 471000, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaoguang","family":"Tu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"},{"name":"Sichuan Province Engineering Technology Research Center of General Aircraft Maintenance, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xijun","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinyu","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Aviation Electronics and Electrical, Civil Aviation Flight University of China, Guanghan 618307, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Butil\u0103, E.V., and Boboc, R.G. 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