MDReID: Modality-Decoupled Learning for Any-to-Any Multi-Modal Object Re-Identification

Real-world object re-identification (ReID) systems often face modality inconsistencies, where query and gallery images come from different sensors (e.g., RGB, NIR, TIR). However, most existing methods assume modality-matched conditions, which limits their robustness and scalability in practical applications. To address this challenge, we propose MDReID, a flexible any-to-any image-level ReID framework designed to operate under both modality-matched and modality-mismatched scenarios. MDReID builds on the insight that modality information can be decomposed into two components: modality-shared features that are predictable and transferable, and modality-specific features that capture unique, modalitydependent characteristics. To effectively leverage this, MDReID introduces two key components: the Modality Decoupling Learning (MDL) and Modality-aware Metric Learning (MML).