Unsupervised Dark-Channel Attention-Guided CycleGAN for Single-Image Dehazing

In this paper, we propose a new unsupervised attention-based cycle generative adversarial network to solve the problem of single-image dehazing. The proposed method adds an attention mechanism that can dehaze different areas on the basis of the previous generative adversarial network (GAN) dehazing method. This mechanism not only avoids the need to change the haze-free area due to the overall style migration of traditional GANs, but also pays attention to the different degrees of haze concentrations that need to be changed, while retaining the details of the original image. To more accurately and quickly label the concentrations and areas of haze, we innovatively use training-enhanced dark channels as attention maps, combining the advantages of prior algorithms and deep learning. The proposed method does not require paired datasets, and it can adequately generate high-resolution images. Experiments demonstrate that our algorithm is superior to previous algorithms in various scenarios. The proposed algorithm can effectively process very hazy images, misty images, and haze-free images, which is of great significance for dehazing in complex scenes.