Estimating optical vegetation indices with Sentinel-1 SAR data and AutoML

Current optical vegetation indices (VIs) for monitoring forest ecosystems are widely used in various applications. However, continuous monitoring based on optical satellite data can be hampered by atmospheric effects such as clouds. On the contrary, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data can offer insightful and systematic forest monitoring with complete time series due to signal penetration through clouds and day and night acquisitions. The goal of this work is to overcome the issues affecting optical data with SAR data and serve as a substitute for estimating optical VIs for forests using machine learning. Time series of four VIs (LAI, FAPAR, EVI and NDVI) were estimated using multitemporal Sentinel-1 SAR and ancillary data. This was enabled by creating a paired multi-temporal and multi-modal dataset in Google Earth Engine (GEE), including temporally and spatially aligned Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, digital elevation model (DEM), weather and land cover datasets (MMT-GEE). The use of ancillary features generated from DEM and weather data improved the results. The open-source Automatic Machine Learning (AutoML) approach, auto-sklearn, outperformed Random Forest Regression for three out of four VIs, while a 1-hour optimization length was enough to achieve sufficient results with an R2 of 69-84% low errors (0.05-0.32 of MAE depending on VI). Great agreement was also found for selected case studies in the time series analysis and in the spatial comparison between the original and estimated SAR-based VIs. In general, compared to VIs from currently freely available optical satellite data and available global VI products, a better temporal resolution (up to 240 measurements/year) and a better spatial resolution (20 m) were achieved using estimated SAR-based VIs. A great advantage of the SAR-based VI is the ability to detect abrupt forest changes with a sub-weekly temporal accuracy.Comment: Full research article. 30 pages, 13 figures, 8 table

Quantum Machine Learning for Remote Sensing: Exploring potential and challenges

The industry of quantum technologies is rapidly expanding, offering promising opportunities for various scientific domains. Among these emerging technologies, Quantum Machine Learning (QML) has attracted considerable attention due to its potential to revolutionize data processing and analysis. In this paper, we investigate the application of QML in the field of remote sensing. It is believed that QML can provide valuable insights for analysis of data from space. We delve into the common beliefs surrounding the quantum advantage in QML for remote sensing and highlight the open challenges that need to be addressed. To shed light on the challenges, we conduct a study focused on the problem of kernel value concentration, a phenomenon that adversely affects the runtime of quantum computers. Our findings indicate that while this issue negatively impacts quantum computer performance, it does not entirely negate the potential quantum advantage in QML for remote sensing.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures. Presented at the Big Data from Space 2023 conferenc

Apprendre à comprendre les images d'observation de la Terre avec des annotations pauvres et non fiables

International audienceIn this paper we discuss the issues of using inexact and inaccurate ground truth in the context of supervised learning. To leverage large amounts of Earth observation data for training algorithms, one often has to use ground truth which was not been carefully assessed. We address both the problems of training and evaluation. We first propose a weakly supervised approach for training change classifiers which is able to detect pixel-level changes in aerial images. We then propose a data poisoning approach to get a reliable estimate of the accuracy that can be expected from a classifier, even when the only ground-truth available does not match the reality. Both are assessed on practical land use and land cover applications

Regards sur un demi-siècle

Le premier numéro du Bulletin des bibliothèques de France est paru en 1956. Pour marquer ce cinquantenaire, un numéro spécial a été réalisé, comprenant 14 articles de fond sur l\u27évolution des bibliothèques et du métier de bibliothécaire ces cinquante dernières années. Ce numéro reprend l\u27ancien format de la revue ainsi que la couverture rouge qu\u27il a gardée jusqu\u27en 1979

Learning Speckle Suppression in Sar Images Without Ground Truth: Application to Sentinel-1 Time-Series

International audienceThis paper proposes a method of denoising SAR images, using a deep learning method, which takes advantage of the abundance of data to learn on large stacks of images of the same scene. The approach is based on the use of convolu-tional networks, used as auto-encoders. Learning is led on a large pile of images acquired on the same area, and assumes that the images of this stack differ only by the speckle noise. Several pairs of images are chosen randomly in the stack, and the network tries to predict the slave image from the master image. In this prediction, the network can not predict the noise because of its random nature. Also the application of this network to a new image fulfills the speckle filtering function. Results are given on Sentinel 1 images. They show that this approach is qualitatively competitive with literature

A Multibranch Convolutional Neural Network for Hyperspectral Unmixing

Hyperspectral unmixing remains one of the most challenging tasks in the analysis of such data. Deep learning has been blooming in the field and proved to outperform other classic unmixing techniques, and can be effectively deployed onboard Earth observation satellites equipped with hyperspectral imagers. In this letter, we follow this research pathway and propose a multi-branch convolutional neural network that benefits from fusing spectral, spatial, and spectral-spatial features in the unmixing process. The results of our experiments, backed up with the ablation study, revealed that our techniques outperform others from the literature and lead to higher-quality fractional abundance estimation. Also, we investigated the influence of reducing the training sets on the capabilities of all algorithms and their robustness against noise, as capturing large and representative ground-truth sets is time-consuming and costly in practice, especially in emerging Earth observation scenarios.Comment: 14 pages (including supplementary material), published in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letter