Locating the marine target in a quick and precise way is the crucial point of implementing SAR (search and rescue) at sea, which involves aspects of developing SAR strategy and detects the marine targets. As the effect of marine target detection restricts the SAR result directly, the study has focused on reviewing the previous research about marine target detection, especially dim marine target detection. What's more, small target detection under complex sea status is one of the severe

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... s which is research's hotspot and needs more endeavor. Current research results and future research directions are discussed in the paper. The findings can provide systematic view of implementing maritime search and rescue for field researchers and governors.