Bidirectional Dynamic Adaptation: Mutual Learning with Cross-Network Feature Rectification for Urban Segmentation
Jiawen Zhang, Ning Chen · Applied Sciences · 2025
Semantic segmentation of urban scenes from red–green–blue and thermal infrared imagery enables per-pixel categorization, delivering precise environmental understanding for autonomous driving and urban planning. However, existing methods suffer from inefficient fusion and insufficient boundary accuracy due to modal differences. To address these challenges, we propose a bidirectional dynamic adaptation framework with two complementary networks. The modality-aware network uses dual attention and multi-scale feature integration to balance modal contributions adaptively, improving intra-class semantic consistency and reducing modal disparities. The edge-texture guidance network applies pixel-level and feature-level weighting with Sobel and Gabor filters to enhance inter-class boundary discrimination, improving detail and boundary precision. Furthermore, the framework redefines multi-modal synergy using an adaptive cross-modal mutual learning mechanism. This mechanism employs information-driven dynamic alignment and probability-guided semantic consistency to overcome the fixed constraints of traditional mutual learning. This cohesive orchestration enhances multi-modal fusion efficiency and boundary delineation accuracy. Extensive experiments on the MFNet and PST900 datasets demonstrate the framework’s superior performance in urban road, vehicle, and pedestrian segmentation, surpassing state-of-the-art approaches.