Microsoft Research
Abstract:All-in-One image restoration aims to address multiple image degradation problems using a single model, significantly reducing training costs and deployment complexity compared to traditional methods that design dedicated models for each degradation type. Existing approaches typically rely on Degradation-specific models or coarse-grained degradation prompts to guide image restoration. However, they lack fine-grained modeling of degradation information and face limitations in balancing multi-task conflicts. To overcome these limitations, we propose DPMambaIR, a novel All-in-One image restoration framework. By integrating a Degradation-Aware Prompt State Space Model (DP-SSM) and a High-Frequency Enhancement Block (HEB), DPMambaIR enables fine-grained modeling of complex degradation information and efficient global integration, while mitigating the loss of high-frequency details caused by task competition. Specifically, the DP-SSM utilizes a pre-trained degradation extractor to capture fine-grained degradation features and dynamically incorporates them into the state space modeling process, enhancing the model's adaptability to diverse degradation types. Concurrently, the HEB supplements high-frequency information, effectively addressing the loss of critical details, such as edges and textures, in multi-task image restoration scenarios. Extensive experiments on a mixed dataset containing seven degradation types show that DPMambaIR achieves the best performance, with 27.69dB and 0.893 in PSNR and SSIM, respectively. These results highlight the potential and superiority of DPMambaIR as a unified solution for All-in-One image restoration.
Abstract:The rapid evolution of deep generative models poses a critical challenge to deepfake detection, as detectors trained on forgery-specific artifacts often suffer significant performance degradation when encountering unseen forgeries. While existing methods predominantly rely on spatial domain analysis, frequency domain operations are primarily limited to feature-level augmentation, leaving frequency-native artifacts and spatial-frequency interactions insufficiently exploited. To address this limitation, we propose a novel detection framework that integrates multi-scale spatial-frequency analysis for universal deepfake detection. Our framework comprises three key components: (1) a local spectral feature extraction pipeline that combines block-wise discrete cosine transform with cascaded multi-scale convolutions to capture subtle spectral artifacts; (2) a global spectral feature extraction pipeline utilizing scale-invariant differential accumulation to identify holistic forgery distribution patterns; and (3) a multi-stage cross-modal fusion mechanism that incorporates shallow-layer attention enhancement and deep-layer dynamic modulation to model spatial-frequency interactions. Extensive evaluations on widely adopted benchmarks demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art deepfake detection methods in both accuracy and generalizability.
Abstract:LiDAR place recognition (LPR) plays a vital role in autonomous navigation. However, existing LPR methods struggle to maintain robustness under adverse weather conditions such as rain, snow, and fog, where weather-induced noise and point cloud degradation impair LiDAR reliability and perception accuracy. To tackle these challenges, we propose an Iterative Task-Driven Framework (ITDNet), which integrates a LiDAR Data Restoration (LDR) module and a LiDAR Place Recognition (LPR) module through an iterative learning strategy. These modules are jointly trained end-to-end, with alternating optimization to enhance performance. The core rationale of ITDNet is to leverage the LDR module to recover the corrupted point clouds while preserving structural consistency with clean data, thereby improving LPR accuracy in adverse weather. Simultaneously, the LPR task provides feature pseudo-labels to guide the LDR module's training, aligning it more effectively with the LPR task. To achieve this, we first design a task-driven LPR loss and a reconstruction loss to jointly supervise the optimization of the LDR module. Furthermore, for the LDR module, we propose a Dual-Domain Mixer (DDM) block for frequency-spatial feature fusion and a Semantic-Aware Generator (SAG) block for semantic-guided restoration. In addition, for the LPR module, we introduce a Multi-Frequency Transformer (MFT) block and a Wavelet Pyramid NetVLAD (WPN) block to aggregate multi-scale, robust global descriptors. Finally, extensive experiments on the Weather-KITTI, Boreas, and our proposed Weather-Apollo datasets demonstrate that, demonstrate that ITDNet outperforms existing LPR methods, achieving state-of-the-art performance in adverse weather. The datasets and code will be made publicly available at https://github.com/Grandzxw/ITDNet.
Abstract:Referring video object segmentation (RVOS) aims to segment objects in videos guided by natural language descriptions. We propose FS-RVOS, a Transformer-based model with two key components: a cross-modal affinity module and an instance sequence matching strategy, which extends FS-RVOS to multi-object segmentation (FS-RVMOS). Experiments show FS-RVOS and FS-RVMOS outperform state-of-the-art methods across diverse benchmarks, demonstrating superior robustness and accuracy.
Abstract:The Transformer model is widely used in various application areas of machine learning, such as natural language processing. This paper investigates the approximation of the H\"older continuous function class $\mathcal{H}_{Q}^{\beta}\left([0,1]^{d\times n},\mathbb{R}^{d\times n}\right)$ by Transformers and constructs several Transformers that can overcome the curse of dimensionality. These Transformers consist of one self-attention layer with one head and the softmax function as the activation function, along with several feedforward layers. For example, to achieve an approximation accuracy of $\epsilon$, if the activation functions of the feedforward layers in the Transformer are ReLU and floor, only $\mathcal{O}\left(\log\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$ layers of feedforward layers are needed, with widths of these layers not exceeding $\mathcal{O}\left(\frac{1}{\epsilon^{2/\beta}}\log\frac{1}{\epsilon}\right)$. If other activation functions are allowed in the feedforward layers, the width of the feedforward layers can be further reduced to a constant. These results demonstrate that Transformers have a strong expressive capability. The construction in this paper is based on the Kolmogorov-Arnold Representation Theorem and does not require the concept of contextual mapping, hence our proof is more intuitively clear compared to previous Transformer approximation works. Additionally, the translation technique proposed in this paper helps to apply the previous approximation results of feedforward neural networks to Transformer research.
Abstract:This paper presents an overview of NTIRE 2025 the First Challenge on Event-Based Image Deblurring, detailing the proposed methodologies and corresponding results. The primary goal of the challenge is to design an event-based method that achieves high-quality image deblurring, with performance quantitatively assessed using Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR). Notably, there are no restrictions on computational complexity or model size. The task focuses on leveraging both events and images as inputs for single-image deblurring. A total of 199 participants registered, among whom 15 teams successfully submitted valid results, offering valuable insights into the current state of event-based image deblurring. We anticipate that this challenge will drive further advancements in event-based vision research.
Abstract:We explore the approximation capabilities of Transformer networks for H\"older and Sobolev functions, and apply these results to address nonparametric regression estimation with dependent observations. First, we establish novel upper bounds for standard Transformer networks approximating sequence-to-sequence mappings whose component functions are H\"older continuous with smoothness index $\gamma \in (0,1]$. To achieve an approximation error $\varepsilon$ under the $L^p$-norm for $p \in [1, \infty]$, it suffices to use a fixed-depth Transformer network whose total number of parameters scales as $\varepsilon^{-d_x n / \gamma}$. This result not only extends existing findings to include the case $p = \infty$, but also matches the best known upper bounds on number of parameters previously obtained for fixed-depth FNNs and RNNs. Similar bounds are also derived for Sobolev functions. Second, we derive explicit convergence rates for the nonparametric regression problem under various $\beta$-mixing data assumptions, which allow the dependence between observations to weaken over time. Our bounds on the sample complexity impose no constraints on weight magnitudes. Lastly, we propose a novel proof strategy to establish approximation bounds, inspired by the Kolmogorov-Arnold representation theorem. We show that if the self-attention layer in a Transformer can perform column averaging, the network can approximate sequence-to-sequence H\"older functions, offering new insights into the interpretability of self-attention mechanisms.
Abstract:Empirical Risk Minimization (ERM) models often rely on spurious correlations between features and labels during the learning process, leading to shortcut learning behavior that undermines robustness generalization performance. Current research mainly targets identifying or mitigating a single shortcut; however, in real-world scenarios, cues within the data are diverse and unknown. In empirical studies, we reveal that the models rely to varying extents on different shortcuts. Compared to weak shortcuts, models depend more heavily on strong shortcuts, resulting in their poor generalization ability. To address these challenges, we propose MiMu, a novel method integrated with Transformer-based ERMs designed to Mitigate Multiple shortcut learning behavior, which incorporates self-calibration strategy and self-improvement strategy. In the source model, we preliminarily propose the self-calibration strategy to prevent the model from relying on shortcuts and make overconfident predictions. Then, we further design self-improvement strategy in target model to reduce the reliance on multiple shortcuts. The random mask strategy involves randomly masking partial attention positions to diversify the focus of target model other than concentrating on a fixed region. Meanwhile, the adaptive attention alignment module facilitates the alignment of attention weights to the calibrated source model, without the need for post-hoc attention maps or supervision. Finally, extensive experiments conducted on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computer Vision (CV) demonstrate the effectiveness of MiMu in improving robustness generalization abilities.
Abstract:This paper presents a comprehensive review of the NTIRE 2025 Challenge on Single-Image Efficient Super-Resolution (ESR). The challenge aimed to advance the development of deep models that optimize key computational metrics, i.e., runtime, parameters, and FLOPs, while achieving a PSNR of at least 26.90 dB on the $\operatorname{DIV2K\_LSDIR\_valid}$ dataset and 26.99 dB on the $\operatorname{DIV2K\_LSDIR\_test}$ dataset. A robust participation saw \textbf{244} registered entrants, with \textbf{43} teams submitting valid entries. This report meticulously analyzes these methods and results, emphasizing groundbreaking advancements in state-of-the-art single-image ESR techniques. The analysis highlights innovative approaches and establishes benchmarks for future research in the field.
Abstract:The unmanned aerial manipulator system, consisting of a multirotor UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and a manipulator, has attracted considerable interest from researchers. Nevertheless, the operation of a dual-arm manipulator poses a dynamic challenge, as the CoM (center of mass) of the system changes with manipulator movement, potentially impacting the multirotor UAV. Additionally, unmodeled effects, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances can significantly degrade control performance, leading to unforeseen dangers. To tackle these issues, this paper proposes a nonlinear adaptive RISE (robust integral of the sign of the error) controller based on DNN (deep neural network). The first step involves establishing the kinematic and dynamic model of the dual-arm aerial manipulator. Subsequently, the adaptive RISE controller is proposed with a DNN feedforward term to effectively address both internal and external challenges. By employing Lyapunov techniques, the asymptotic convergence of the tracking error signals are guaranteed rigorously. Notably, this paper marks a pioneering effort by presenting the first DNN-based adaptive RISE controller design accompanied by a comprehensive stability analysis. To validate the practicality and robustness of the proposed control approach, several groups of actual hardware experiments are conducted. The results confirm the efficacy of the developed methodology in handling real-world scenarios, thereby offering valuable insights into the performance of the dual-arm aerial manipulator system.