Deep learning in remote sensing: a review

Standing at the paradigm shift towards data-intensive science, machine learning techniques are becoming increasingly important. In particular, as a major breakthrough in the field, deep learning has proven as an extremely powerful tool in many fields. Shall we embrace deep learning as the key to all? Or, should we resist a 'black-box' solution? There are controversial opinions in the remote sensing community. In this article, we analyze the challenges of using deep learning for remote sensing data analysis, review the recent advances, and provide resources to make deep learning in remote sensing ridiculously simple to start with. More importantly, we advocate remote sensing scientists to bring their expertise into deep learning, and use it as an implicit general model to tackle unprecedented large-scale influential challenges, such as climate change and urbanization.Comment: Accepted for publication IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazin

Advanced techniques for classification of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data

With various remote sensing technologies to aid Earth Observation, radar-based imaging is one of them gaining major interests due to advances in its imaging techniques in form of syn-thetic aperture radar (SAR) and polarimetry. The majority of radar applications focus on mon-itoring, detecting, and classifying local or global areas of interests to support humans within their efforts of decision-making, analysis, and interpretation of Earth’s environment. This thesis focuses on improving the classification performance and process particularly concerning the application of land use and land cover over polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data. To achieve this, three contributions are studied related to superior feature description and ad-vanced machine-learning techniques including classifiers, principles, and data exploitation. First, this thesis investigates the application of color features within PolSAR image classi-fication to provide additional discrimination on top of the conventional scattering information and texture features. The color features are extracted over the visual presentation of fully and partially polarimetric SAR data by generation of pseudo color images. Within the experiments, the obtained results demonstrated that with the addition of the considered color features, the achieved classification performances outperformed results with common PolSAR features alone as well as achieved higher classification accuracies compared to the traditional combination of PolSAR and texture features. Second, to address the large-scale learning challenge in PolSAR image classification with the utmost efficiency, this thesis introduces the application of an adaptive and data-driven supervised classification topology called Collective Network of Binary Classifiers, CNBC. This topology incorporates active learning to support human users with the analysis and interpretation of PolSAR data focusing on collections of images, where changes or updates to the existing classifier might be required frequently due to surface, terrain, and object changes as well as certain variations in capturing time and position. Evaluations demonstrated the capabilities of CNBC over an extensive set of experimental results regarding the adaptation and data-driven classification of single as well as collections of PolSAR images. The experimental results verified that the evolutionary classification topology, CNBC, did provide an efficient solution for the problems of scalability and dynamic adaptability allowing both feature space dimensions and the number of terrain classes in PolSAR image collections to vary dynamically. Third, most PolSAR classification problems are undertaken by supervised machine learn-ing, which require manually labeled ground truth data available. To reduce the manual labeling efforts, supervised and unsupervised learning approaches are combined into semi-supervised learning to utilize the huge amount of unlabeled data. The application of semi-supervised learning in this thesis is motivated by ill-posed classification tasks related to the small training size problem. Therefore, this thesis investigates how much ground truth is actually necessary for certain classification problems to achieve satisfactory results in a supervised and semi-supervised learning scenario. To address this, two semi-supervised approaches are proposed by unsupervised extension of the training data and ensemble-based self-training. The evaluations showed that significant speed-ups and improvements in classification performance are achieved. In particular, for a remote sensing application such as PolSAR image classification, it is advantageous to exploit the location-based information from the labeled training data. Each of the developed techniques provides its stand-alone contribution from different viewpoints to improve land use and land cover classification. The introduction of a new fea-ture for better discrimination is independent of the underlying classification algorithms used. The application of the CNBC topology is applicable to various classification problems no matter how the underlying data have been acquired, for example in case of remote sensing data. Moreover, the semi-supervised learning approach tackles the challenge of utilizing the unlabeled data. By combining these techniques for superior feature description and advanced machine-learning techniques exploiting classifier topologies and data, further contributions to polarimetric SAR image classification are made. According to the performance evaluations conducted including visual and numerical assessments, the proposed and investigated tech-niques showed valuable improvements and are able to aid the analysis and interpretation of PolSAR image data. Due to the generic nature of the developed techniques, their applications to other remote sensing data will require only minor adjustments

Fuzzy superpixels for polarimetric SAR images classification

Superpixels technique has drawn much attention in computer vision applications. Each superpixels algorithm has its own advantages. Selecting a more appropriate superpixels algorithm for a specific application can improve the performance of the application. In the last few years, superpixels are widely used in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image classification. However, no superpixel algorithm is especially designed for image classification. It is believed that both mixed superpixels and pure superpixels exist in an image.Nevertheless, mixed superpixels have negative effects on classification accuracy. Thus, it is necessary to generate superpixels containing as few mixed superpixels as possible for image classification. In this paper, first, a novel superpixels concept, named fuzzy superpixels, is proposed for reducing the generation of mixed superpixels.In fuzzy superpixels ,not al lpixels are assigned to a corresponding superpixel. We would rather ignore the pixels than assigning them to improper superpixels. Second,a new algorithm, named FuzzyS(FS),is proposed to generate fuzzy superpixels for PolSAR image classification. Three PolSAR images are used to verify the effect of the proposed FS algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed FS algorithm over several state-of-the-art superpixels algorithms

Image Clustering and Classification Technique: A Review

Image classification is an important tool for extracting information from digital images. The aim of this paper is to summarize information about few image classification techniques. The paper also elaborates different categories of image classification techniques. The image classification techniques considered in this paper are Parallelpiped Technique, Minimum Distance Technique, Maximum Likelihood (ML) Technique, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM)

Deep Learning in Remote Sensing: A Comprehensive Review and List of Resources

Central to the looming paradigm shift toward data-intensive science, machine-learning techniques are becoming increasingly important. In particular, deep learning has proven to be both a major breakthrough and an extremely powerful tool in many fields. Shall we embrace deep learning as the key to everything? Or should we resist a black-box solution? These are controversial issues within the remote-sensing community. In this article, we analyze the challenges of using deep learning for remote-sensing data analysis, review recent advances, and provide resources we hope will make deep learning in remote sensing seem ridiculously simple. More importantly, we encourage remote-sensing scientists to bring their expertise into deep learning and use it as an implicit general model to tackle unprecedented, large-scale, influential challenges, such as climate change and urbanization

Outils statistiques et géométriques pour la classification des images SAR polarimétriques hautement texturées

Les radars à synthèse d'ouverture (Synthetic Aperture Radar ou SAR) permettent de fournir des images à très haute résolution de la surface de la Terre. Les algorithmes de classification traditionnels se basent sur une hypothèse de bruit gaussien comme modèle de signal, qui est rapidement mise en défaut lorsque l'environnement devient inhomogène ou impulsionnel, comme c'est particulièrement le cas dans les images SAR polarimétriques haute résolution, notamment au niveau des zones urbaines. L'utilisation d'un modèle de bruit composé, appelé modèle SIRV, permet de mieux prendre en compte ces phénomènes et de représenter la réalité de manière plus adéquate. Cette thèse s'emploie alors à étudier l'application et l'impact de ce modèle pour la classification des images SAR polarimétriques afin d'améliorer l'interprétation des classifications au sens de la polarimétrie et à proposer des outils adaptés à ce nouveau modèle. En effet, il apparaît rapidement que les techniques classiques utilisent en réalité beaucoup plus l'information relative à la puissance de chaque pixel plutôt qu'à la polarimétrie pour la classification. Par ailleurs, les techniques de classification traditionnelles font régulièrement appel à la moyenne de matrices de covariance, calculée comme une moyenne arithmétique. Cependant, étant donnée la nature riemannienne de l'espace des matrices de covariance, cette définition n'est pas applicable et il est nécessaire d'employer une définition plus adaptée à cette structure riemannienne. Nous mettons en évidence l'intérêt d'utiliser un modèle de bruit non gaussien sur des données réelles et nous proposons plusieurs approches pour tirer parti de l'information polarimétrique qu'il apporte. L'apport de la géométrie de l'information pour le calcul de la moyenne est de même étudié, sur des données simulées mais également sur des données réelles acquises par l'ONERA. Enfin, une étude préliminaire d'une extension de ces travaux au cas de l'imagerie hyperspectrale est proposée, de par la proximité de ce type de données avec les données SAR polarimétriques.Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) now provide high resolution images of the Earth surface. Traditional classification algorithms are based on a Gaussian assumption for the distribution of the signal, which is no longer valid when the background is heterogeneous, which is particularly the case for polarimetric SAR images, especially in urban areas. A compound Gaussian model, called the SIRV model, allows to take into account these phenomena. This thesis is then devoted to studying the impact of this model for the classification of polarimetric SAR images in order to improve the interpretation of classification results in a polarimetric sense, and to propose tools better suited to this model. Indeed, classical techniques using the Gaussian assumption actually use the power information of each pixel much more than the polarimetric information. Furthermore, it is often necessary to compute a mean of covariance matrices, usually by taking the standard arithmetical mean. However, the space of covariance matrices has a Riemannian structure, not an Euclidean one, which means this definition of the mean is not correct. We will then present several methods to use the actual polarimetric information thanks to the SIRV model to improve the classification results. The benefit of using a correct, Riemannian definition of the mean will also be demonstrated on simulated and real data. Finally, a preliminary study of an extension of this work to hyperspectral imagery will be presented.RENNES1-Bibl. électronique (352382106) / SudocSudocFranceF

Quantitative Estimation of Surface Soil Moisture in Agricultural Landscapes using Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging at Different Frequencies and Polarizations

Soil moisture and its distribution in space and time plays an important role in the surface energy balance at the soil-atmosphere interface. It is a key variable influencing the partitioning of solar energy into latent and sensible heat flux as well as the partitioning of precipitation into runoff and percolation. Due to their large spatial variability, estimation of spatial patterns of soil moisture from field measurements is difficult and not feasible for large scale analyses. In the past decades, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) remote sensing has proven its potential to quantitatively estimate near surface soil moisture at high spatial resolutions. Since the knowledge of the basic SAR concepts is important to understand the impact of different natural terrain features on the quantitative estimation of soil moisture and other surface parameters, the fundamental principles of synthetic aperture radar imaging are discussed. Also the two spaceborne SAR missions whose data was used in this study, the ENVISAT of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the ALOS of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), are introduced. Subsequently, the two essential surface properties in the field of radar remote sensing, surface soil moisture and surface roughness are defined, and the established methods of their measurement are described. The in situ data used in this study, as well as the research area, the River Rur catchment, with the individual test sites where the data was collected between 2007 and 2010, are specified. On this basis, the important scattering theories in radar polarimetry are discussed and their application is demonstrated using novel polarimetric ALOS/PALSAR data. A critical review of different classical approaches to invert soil moisture from SAR imaging is provided. Five prevalent models have been chosen with the aim to provide an overview of the evolution of ideas and techniques in the field of soil moisture estimation from active microwave data. As the core of this work, a new semi-empirical model for the inversion of surface soil moisture from dual polarimetric L-band SAR data is introduced. This novel approach utilizes advanced polarimetric decomposition techniques to correct for the disturbing effects from surface roughness and vegetation on the soil moisture retrieval without the use of a priori knowledge. The land use specific algorithms for bare soil, grassland, sugar beet, and winter wheat allow quantitative estimations with accuracies in the order of 4 Vol.-%. Application of remotely sensed soil moisture patterns is demonstrated on the basis of mesoscale SAR data by investigating the variability of soil moisture patterns at different spatial scales ranging from field scale to catchment scale. The results show that the variability of surface soil moisture decreases with increasing wetness states at all scales. Finally, the conclusions from this dissertational research are summarized and future perspectives on how to extend the proposed model by means of improved ground based measurements and upcoming advances in sensor technology are discussed. The results obtained in this thesis lead to the conclusion that state-of-the-art spaceborne dual polarimetric L-band SAR systems are not only suitable to accurately retrieve surface soil moisture contents of bare as well as of vegetated agricultural fields and grassland, but for the first time also allow investigating within-field spatial heterogeneities from space

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Meets Deep Learning

This reprint focuses on the application of the combination of synthetic aperture radars and depth learning technology. It aims to further promote the development of SAR image intelligent interpretation technology. A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is an important active microwave imaging sensor, whose all-day and all-weather working capacity give it an important place in the remote sensing community. Since the United States launched the first SAR satellite, SAR has received much attention in the remote sensing community, e.g., in geological exploration, topographic mapping, disaster forecast, and traffic monitoring. It is valuable and meaningful, therefore, to study SAR-based remote sensing applications. In recent years, deep learning represented by convolution neural networks has promoted significant progress in the computer vision community, e.g., in face recognition, the driverless field and Internet of things (IoT). Deep learning can enable computational models with multiple processing layers to learn data representations with multiple-level abstractions. This can greatly improve the performance of various applications. This reprint provides a platform for researchers to handle the above significant challenges and present their innovative and cutting-edge research results when applying deep learning to SAR in various manuscript types, e.g., articles, letters, reviews and technical reports

Segmentation and Classification of Multimodal Imagery

Segmentation and classification are two important computer vision tasks that transform input data into a compact representation that allow fast and efficient analysis. Several challenges exist in generating accurate segmentation or classification results. In a video, for example, objects often change the appearance and are partially occluded, making it difficult to delineate the object from its surroundings. This thesis proposes video segmentation and aerial image classification algorithms to address some of the problems and provide accurate results. We developed a gradient driven three-dimensional segmentation technique that partitions a video into spatiotemporal objects. The algorithm utilizes the local gradient computed at each pixel location together with the global boundary map acquired through deep learning methods to generate initial pixel groups by traversing from low to high gradient regions. A local clustering method is then employed to refine these initial pixel groups. The refined sub-volumes in the homogeneous regions of video are selected as initial seeds and iteratively combined with adjacent groups based on intensity similarities. The volume growth is terminated at the color boundaries of the video. The over-segments obtained from the above steps are then merged hierarchically by a multivariate approach yielding a final segmentation map for each frame. In addition, we also implemented a streaming version of the above algorithm that requires a lower computational memory. The results illustrate that our proposed methodology compares favorably well, on a qualitative and quantitative level, in segmentation quality and computational efficiency with the latest state of the art techniques. We also developed a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based method to efficiently combine information from multisensor remotely sensed images for pixel-wise semantic classification. The CNN features obtained from multiple spectral bands are fused at the initial layers of deep neural networks as opposed to final layers. The early fusion architecture has fewer parameters and thereby reduces the computational time and GPU memory during training and inference. We also introduce a composite architecture that fuses features throughout the network. The methods were validated on four different datasets: ISPRS Potsdam, Vaihingen, IEEE Zeebruges, and Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 dataset. For the Sentinel-1,-2 datasets, we obtain the ground truth labels for three classes from OpenStreetMap. Results on all the images show early fusion, specifically after layer three of the network, achieves results similar to or better than a decision level fusion mechanism. The performance of the proposed architecture is also on par with the state-of-the-art results

Searching for Needles in the Cosmic Haystack

Searching for pulsar signals in radio astronomy data sets is a difficult task. The data sets are extremely large, approaching the petabyte scale, and are growing larger as instruments become more advanced. Big Data brings with it big challenges. Processing the data to identify candidate pulsar signals is computationally expensive and must utilize parallelism to be scalable. Labeling benchmarks for supervised classification is costly. To compound the problem, pulsar signals are very rare, e.g., only 0.05% of the instances in one data set represent pulsars. Furthermore, there are many different approaches to candidate classification with no consensus on a best practice. This dissertation is focused on identifying and classifying radio pulsar candidates from single pulse searches. First, to identify and classify Dispersed Pulse Groups (DPGs), we developed a supervised machine learning approach that consists of RAPID (a novel peak identification algorithm), feature extraction, and supervised machine learning classification. We tested six algorithms for classification with four imbalance treatments. Results showed that classifiers with imbalance treatments had higher recall values. Overall, classifiers using multiclass RandomForests combined with Synthetic Majority Oversampling TEchnique (SMOTE) were the most efficient; they identified additional known pulsars not in the benchmark, with less false positives than other classifiers. Second, we developed a parallel single pulse identification method, D-RAPID, and introduced a novel automated multiclass labeling (ALM) technique that we combined with feature selection to improve execution performance. D-RAPID improved execution performance over RAPID by a factor of 5. We also showed that the combination of ALM and feature selection sped up the execution performance of RandomForest by 54% on average with less than a 2% average reduction in classification performance. Finally, we proposed CoDRIFt, a novel classification algorithm that is distributed for scalability and employs semi-supervised learning to leverage unlabeled data to inform classification. We evaluated and compared CoDRIFt to eleven other classifiers. The results showed that CoDRIFt excelled at classifying candidates in imbalanced benchmarks with a majority of non-pulsar signals (\u3e95%). Furthermore, CoDRIFt models created with very limited sets of labeled data (as few as 22 labeled minority class instances) were able to achieve high recall (mean = 0.98). In comparison to the other algorithms trained on similar sets, CoDRIFt outperformed them all, with recall 2.9% higher than the next best classifier and a 35% average improvement over all eleven classifiers. CoDRIFt is customizable for other problem domains with very large, imbalanced data sets, such as fraud detection and cyber attack detection