FCA-Net: A Fast Inference and Channel Attention Based Network for Hyperspectral Image Classification

Abstract

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a competitive remote sensing technique used in various fields such as land cover mapping and environmental monitoring. Each hyperspectral imaging (HSI) scene is comprised of numerous narrow and contiguous spectral bands, rendering the extraction of information from HSI data cubes a challenging and computationally intricate endeavor. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have garnered widespread adoption for HSI classification due to their impressive performance. Nevertheless, the substantial number of internal parameters within CNNs engenders high computational and memory requirements, resulting in inefficient floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), particularly when faced with frequent memory access and an abundance of operators. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel framework named Fast Inference and Channel Attention-based Network (FCA-Net). Specifically, the framework introduces a lightweight convolutional layer and a channel attention mechanism (CAM) to enhance the extraction of spatial and spectral information within the network. The proposed FCA-Net significantly reduces computational costs while maintaining reliable classification results and can perform fast processing on GPU or even CPU, making it a promising option for embedded systems. Furthermore, the optimized global computational cost, including reduced demand for compute power and memory, results in lower energy consumption, which has previously been proven advantageous for improving deep model performance.