Disclosed herein are systems and method for detecting small objects in an image using a neural network (NN). An exemplary method may include: receiving a first NN that is trained on a dataset including a plurality of images depicting various objects; identifying a first structure of the first NN, the first structure indicative of each layer and layer size in the first NN; determining, based on the first structure, whether the first NN can classify an object less than a threshold size in an input image; in response to determining that the first NN cannot classify the object, identifying a subset of detection layers in the first NN; generating and training a second NN that has a second structure in which the subset of detection layers are replaced by at least one layer not in the subset; and receiving, from the second NN, a classification of the object.