JFDI: Joint Feature Differentiation and Interaction for domain adaptive object detection

In unsupervised domain adaptive object detection, learning target-specific features is pivotal in enhancing detector performance. However, previous methods mostly concentrated on aligning domain-invariant features across domains and neglected integrating the specific features. To tackle this issue, we introduce a novel feature learning method called Joint Feature Differentiation and Interaction (JFDI), which significantly boosts the adaptability of the object detector. We construct a dual-path architecture based on we proposed feature differentiate modules: One path, guided by the source domain data, utilizes multiple discriminators to confuse and align domain-invariant features. The other path, specifically tailored to the target domain, learns its distinctive characteristics based on pseudo-labeled target data. Subsequently, we implement an interactive enhanced mechanism between these paths to ensure stable learning of features and mitigate interference from pseudo-label noise during the iterative optimization. Additionally, we devise a hierarchical pseudo-label fusion module that consolidates more comprehensive and reliable results. In addition, we analyze the generalization error bound of JFDI, which provides a theoretical basis for the effectiveness of JFDI. Extensive empirical evaluations across diverse benchmark scenarios demonstrate that our method is advanced and efficient.