A comparative study of GhostStem and C2f in YOLOv5s under near-constant compute

In this study, we explore lightweight adjustments to YOLOv5s with near-constant complexity by replacing the stem with GhostStem and C3 with C2f. On Pascal VOC 2007, C2f improved accuracy through better gradient flow and feature reuse, while GhostStem reduced early computation. Yet, their combination did not consistently outperform single modules, suggesting feature conflicts. Complexity remained similar. These findings reveal both the promise and limits of simple module fusion. We will explore alternative placements, integrate attention, expand to VOC2012/COCO, and assess edge hardware deployment.