Quality Of Remote Sensing Images Research Articles

Remote sensing image dehazing using generative adversarial network with texture and color space enhancement

Remote sensing is gradually playing an important role in the detection of ground information. However, the quality of remote-sensing images has always suffered from unexpected natural conditions, such as intense haze phenomenon. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been applied to deal with dehazing problems, and some important findings have been obtained. Unfortunately, the performance of these classical CNN-based methods still needs further enhancement owing to their limited feature extraction capability. As a critical branch of CNNs, the generative adversarial network (GAN), composed of a generator and discriminator, has become a hot research topic and is considered a feasible approach to solving the dehazing problems. In this study, a novel dehazed generative adversarial network (GAN) is proposed to reconstruct the clean images from the hazy ones. For the generator network of the proposed GAN, the color and luminance feature extraction module and the high-frequency feature extraction module aim to extract multi-scale features and color space characteristics, which help the network to acquire texture, color, and luminance information. Meanwhile, a color loss function based on hue saturation value (HSV) is also proposed to enhance the performance in color recovery. For the discriminator network, a parallel structure is designed to enhance the extraction of texture and background information. Synthetic and real hazy images are used to check the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results demonstrate that the performance can significantly improve the image quality with a significant increment in peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). Compared with other popular methods, the dehazing results of the proposed method closely resemble haze-free images.

Pan-Sharpening Network of Multi-Spectral Remote Sensing Images Using Two-Stream Attention Feature Extractor and Multi-Detail Injection (TAMINet)

Achieving a balance between spectral resolution and spatial resolution in multi-spectral remote sensing images is challenging due to physical constraints. Consequently, pan-sharpening technology was developed to address this challenge. While significant progress was recently achieved in deep-learning-based pan-sharpening techniques, most existing deep learning approaches face two primary limitations: (1) convolutional neural networks (CNNs) struggle with long-range dependency issues, and (2) significant detail loss during deep network training. Moreover, despite these methods’ pan-sharpening capabilities, their generalization to full-sized raw images remains problematic due to scaling disparities, rendering them less practical. To tackle these issues, we introduce in this study a multi-spectral remote sensing image fusion network, termed TAMINet, which leverages a two-stream coordinate attention mechanism and multi-detail injection. Initially, a two-stream feature extractor augmented with the coordinate attention (CA) block is employed to derive modal-specific features from low-resolution multi-spectral (LRMS) images and panchromatic (PAN) images. This is followed by feature-domain fusion and pan-sharpening image reconstruction. Crucially, a multi-detail injection approach is incorporated during fusion and reconstruction, ensuring the reintroduction of details lost earlier in the process, which minimizes high-frequency detail loss. Finally, a novel hybrid loss function is proposed that incorporates spatial loss, spectral loss, and an additional loss component to enhance performance. The proposed methodology’s effectiveness was validated through experiments on WorldView-2 satellite images, IKONOS, and QuickBird, benchmarked against current state-of-the-art techniques. Experimental findings reveal that TAMINet significantly elevates the pan-sharpening performance for large-scale images, underscoring its potential to enhance multi-spectral remote sensing image quality.

An intelligent remote sensing image quality inspection system

AbstractDue to the inevitable presence of quality problems, quality inspection of remote sensing images is indeed an indispensable step between the acquisition and the application of them. However, traditional manual inspection suffers from low efficiency. Hence, we propose a novel deep learning‐based two‐step intelligent system consisting of multiple advanced computer vision models, which first performs image classification by SwinV2 and then accordingly adopts the most appropriate method, such as semantic segmentation by Segformer, to localize the quality problems. Results demonstrate that the proposed method exhibits excellent performance and efficiency, surpassing traditional methods. Furthermore, an initial exploration of applying multimodal models to remote sensing image quality inspection is conducted.

A Remote Sensing Image Quality Interpretation Scale Characterization Method Based on the TTP Criterion

Accurate grading of remote sensing image interpretation is crucial for improving image classification and screening efficiency. Through extensive research, the General Image Quality Equation (GIQE) based on the National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS) has been developed. However, poor reliability and low accuracy issues remain due to the failure to consider human visual characteristics. This paper introduces the Target Task Performance (TTP) criterion as a key parameter to reflect the cascading degradation factors of human visual perception characteristics and system imaging links, which improves the reliability of the model. A New Optimized Remote Sensing Image Quality Equation (NORSIQE), which effectively predicted the interpretability of image information, is constructed. Using 200 sets of test data, the quantitative relationship between key parameters (GSD, TTP, and SNR) of the NORSIQE and the subjective NIIRS level is obtained by a least squares regression fit, and the determination coefficient of the model is as high as 0.916. The model is evaluated for accuracy using 120 sets of validation data, showing an 87% improvement compared to the GIQE4. This method provides theoretical support for the development of new methods for remote sensing image quality evaluation and the design of payloads for remote sensing imaging systems.

A New Method for Estimating Signal-to-Noise Ratio in UAV Hyperspectral Images Based on Pure Pixel Extraction

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is an important radiation characteristic parameter for remote sensing image quality assessment as well as a key performance indicator for remote sensing sensors. At present, the SNR estimation methods based on regular segmentation or continuous segmentation are generally used to obtain image SNR. However, the land cover type has a great influence on the results of the SNR estimation method using regular segmentation, especially the high spectral resolution and high spatial resolution remote sensing images obtained by the low-altitude UAV hyperspectral sensor. In addition, some land cover types are difficult to achieve continuous segmentation. In view of this limitation of the existing SNR estimation methods, a new unsupervised method for estimating SNR in UAV hyperspectral images has been developed in this article, called pure pixel extraction and spectral decorrelation. By directly extracting pure pixels in the spatial dimension and combining the correlation of the spectral dimension to obtain the SNR of the hyperspectral image, this new method replaces the conventional method of improving the segmentation algorithm to improve the accuracy of SNR estimation. Additionally, the box counting method is introduced to determine the image SNR aggregation interval. The results showed that the proposed method had higher accuracy and smaller errors than the other SNR estimation methods. Besides, this method had stronger robustness, it can be used for both radiance and reflectance (atmospherically corrected) UAV hyperspectral images.

Remote Sensing Image Information Quality Evaluation via Node Entropy for Efficient Classification

Combining remote sensing images with deep learning algorithms plays an important role in wide applications. However, it is difficult to have large-scale labeled datasets for remote sensing images because of acquisition conditions and costs. How to use the limited acquisition budget to obtaina better remote sensing image dataset is a problem worth studying. In response to this problem, this paper proposes a remote sensing image quality evaluation method based on node entropy, which can be combined with active learning to provide low-cost guidance for remote sensing image collection and labeling. The method includes a node selection module and a remote sensing image quality evaluation module. The function of the node selection module is to select representative images, and the remote sensing image quality evaluation module evaluates the remote sensing image information quality by calculating the node entropy of the images. The image at the decision boundary of the existing images has a higher information quality. To validate the method proposed in this paper, experiments are performed on two public datasets. The experimental results confirm the superiority of this method compared with other methods.

Radiation scattering effects in the processing of optical quantitative remote sensing data

ABSTRACT Aerospace optical remote sensing is an effective information technology that retrieves physical characteristics of ground objects. With the development of multi-mode payloads and the fusion of multi-source information in spaceborne remote sensing technology, the demand for quantitative and accurate information has raised a series of new issues on information chain technology, and it has also shown great prospects for remote sensing applications. Optical remote sensing image is the basic carrier of feature information. The effect of remote sensing applications largely depends on the image quality. Therefore, improving the imaging quality is of great significance for remote sensing applications. In this letter, the scatter radiation transfer process of the imaging system has been analysed; working principle of scattering imaging in the earth observation process has been introduced, the influence of scatter radiation transfer on remote sensing image quality has been discussed, and the factors of image radiation accuracy has been specified.

A method for quality management of vegetation phenophases derived from satellite remote sensing data

ABSTRACT Remote sensing has become an important technique for monitoring vegetation phenology. The quality of remote-sensing images and derived products is key to successful extraction of vegetation phenophases. There is a need to develop quality management methods to evaluate the data uncertainty and assist the removal of the noises. This paper developed a shape quality assurance score threshold (SQAT) method which accounts for the trend in satellite-derived vegetation index associated with the process of vegetation growth. The proposed method was tested on six widely used methods for extracting vegetation phenophases. Results showed that the SQAT method can effectively identify noises in the vegetation index time series and improve the accuracies of estimated start of season (SOS) and end of season (EOS) of the six methods. After removal of identified noises, the Pearson correlation coefficient (r) averagely increased by 8% for SOS, and 11% for EOS. Regression analyses of vegetation phenophases between the PhenoCam observations and MCD12Q2 product showed that the proposed method performs better than the QA score of MCD12Q2 for quality management. This paper provides promising method for quality management; it has the potential to reduce the uncertainty of the vegetation index time series that can support studies of vegetation phenology monitoring.

Remote sensing image quality evaluation based on deep learning

Remote sensing technology is an effective tool for sensing the earth’s surface. With the continuous improvement of remote sensing technology, remote sensing detectors can obtain more spectral and spatial information, including clear feature contours, complex texture features and spatial layout rules. This information was detected in mineral resources. Surface substance identification, water pollution information monitoring and many other aspects have played an important role. The coding algorithm and defects, storage algorithm and interference from atmospheric cloud radiation information during the imaging process lead to varying degrees of distortion and deterioration of remote sensing images during imaging, transmission and storage. This makes it difficult to process, analyze and apply remote sensing images. Therefore, the design of a reasonable remote sensing image quality evaluation method is not only conducive to the remote sensing image quality evaluation in the real-time processing system of remote sensing image, but also conducive to the optimization of remote sensing image system and image processing algorithm. The application is worthwhile. In this paper, the deteriorating features of remote sensing images will change the statistical distribution. We propose a method for evaluating the quality of remote sensing images in depth learning. Feature learning and blurring as well as noise intensity classification for image remote sensing using convolutional neural network are carried out. The evaluation model is modified by masking effect and perceptual weighting factor, and the quality evaluation results of remote sensing images are obtained according to human vision. The research shows that this method can effectively solve the problem of removing and evaluating the noise of remote sensing image, and can effectively and accurately evaluate the quality of remote sensing image. It is also consistent with subjective assessment and human perception.

Monthly composites from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images for regional major crop mapping with Google Earth Engine

Rapid and accurate access to large-scale, high-resolution crop-type distribution maps is important for agricultural management and sustainable agricultural development. Due to the limitations of remote sensing image quality and data processing capabilities, large-scale crop classification is still challenging. This study aimed to map the distribution of crops in Heilongjiang Province using Google Earth Engine (GEE) and Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images. We obtained Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images from all the covered study areas in the critical period for crop growth in 2018 (May to September), combined monthly composite images of reflectance bands, vegetation indices and polarization bands as input features, and then performed crop classification using a Random Forest (RF) classifier. The results show that the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 monthly composite images combined with the RF classifier can accurately generate the crop distribution map of the study area, and the overall accuracy (OA) reached 89.75%. Through experiments, we also found that the classification performance using time-series images is significantly better than that using single-period images. Compared with the use of traditional bands only (i.e., the visible and near-infrared bands), the addition of shortwave infrared bands can improve the accuracy of crop classification most significantly, followed by the addition of red-edge bands. Adding common vegetation indices and Sentinel-1 data to the crop classification improved the overall classification accuracy and the OA by 0.2 and 0.6%, respectively, compared to using only the Sentinel-2 reflectance bands. The analysis of timeliness revealed that when the July image is available, the increase in the accuracy of crop classification is the highest. When the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images for May, June, and July are available, an OA greater than 80% can be achieved. The results of this study are applicable to large-scale, high-resolution crop classification and provide key technologies for remote sensing-based crop classification in small-scale agricultural areas.

Remote Sensing Image Compression Evaluation Method Based on Neural Network Prediction and Fusion Quality Fidelity

Lossy compression can produce false information, such as blockiness, noise, ringing, ghosting, aliasing, and blurring. This paper provides a comprehensive model for optical remote sensing image characteristics based on the block standard deviation’s retention rate (BSV). We first propose a compression evaluation method, CR_CI, that combines neural network prediction and remote sensing image quality fidelity. Through the compression evaluation and improved experimental verification of multiple satellites (CBERS-02B satellite, ZY-1-02C satellite, CBERS-04 satellite, GF-1, GF-2, etc.), CR_CI can be stable, cleverly test changes in the information extraction performance of optical remote sensing images, and provide strong support for optimizing the design of compression schemes. In addition, a predictor of remote sensing image number compression is constructed based on deep neural networks, which combines compression efficiency (compression ratio), image quality, and protection. Empirical results demonstrate the image’s highest compression efficiency under the premise of satisfying visual interpretation and quantitative application.

Image Motion Measurement and Image Restoration System Based on an Inertial Reference Laser.

Satellites have many high-, medium-, and low-frequency micro vibration sources that lead to the optical axis jitter of the optical load and subsequently degrade the remote sensing image quality. To address this problem, this paper developed an image motion detection and restoration method based on an inertial reference laser, and describe edits principle and key components. To verify the feasibility and performance of this method, this paper also built an image motion measurement and restoration system based on an inertial reference laser, which comprised a camera (including the inertial reference laser unit and a Hartmann wavefront sensor), an integrating sphere, a simulated image target, a parallel light pope, a vibration isolation platform, a vibration generator, and a 6 degrees of freedom platform. The image restoration principle was also described. The background noise in the experiment environment was measured, and an image motion measurement accuracy experiment was performed. Verification experiments of image restoration were also conducted under various working conditions. The experiment results showed that the error of image motion detection based on the inertial reference laser was less than 0.12 pixels (root mean square). By using image motion data to improve image quality, the modulation transfer function (MTF) of the restored image was increased to 1.61–1.88 times that of the original image MTF. The image motion data could be used as feedback to the fast steering mirror to compensate for the satellite jitter in real time and to directly obtain high-quality images.

An Augmented $H_\infty$ Filter for Satellite Jitter Estimation Based on ASTER/SWIR and Blurred Star Images

Remote sensing images obtained from onboard linear array cameras suffer from geometric disturbances in the presence of attitude jitter from a satellite platform. Thus, platform jitter estimation is essential for improving satellite stability and enhancing remote sensing image quality. In this article, a novel integration framework is designed to estimate attitude fluctuation, which combines multispectral advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection/short-wave-infrared (ASTER/SWIR) data and blurred star images from onboard optical sensors. First, a multilevel XGBoost algorithm is applied to learn the nonlinear relationship between the star blurring and instantaneous jitter displacement. An image registration method and a deconvolutional process are then introduced to remove the satellite jitter from ASTER/SWIR data. Next, an augmented $H$$_\infty$ filter is proposed to fuse and estimate the satellite jitter from two algorithms. Simulating experiment results indicate that the jitter estimation error of the proposed integration framework is reduced by 40%. Compared with the existing jitter estimation methods only based on remote sensing image processing, our strategy has better robustness and accuracy, especially on extreme ground scenes.

A Model for Resolving Images of Similar Quality Based on Data Application

Different remote sensing image applications require different quality remote sensing images, and selecting the best quality remote sensing image from multiple remote sensing images with similar quality directly determines the application effect of the image. According to the different applications of remote sensing images, the Rough Set Theory, Fuzzy Set Theory and Back Propagation Neural Network theory (BP Neural Network) are used to establish a remote sensing image quality evaluation model. Combining the basic influencing factors of remote sensing image quality and the influencing factors of specific applications as evaluation indicators, the remote sensing image quality evaluation model is imported, and the best quality remote sensing images are selected in specific applications for remote sensing images of special quality. Finally, this paper proves the feasibility of the model in the selection of the best image quality for specific applications of three different experiments.

Vicarious Methodologies to Assess and Improve the Quality of the Optical Remote Sensing Images: A Critical Review

Over the past decade, number of optical Earth-observing satellites performing remote sensing has increased substantially, dramatically increasing the capability to monitor the Earth. The quantity of remote sensing satellite increase is primarily driven by improved technology, miniaturization of components, reduced manufacturing, and launch cost. These satellites often lack on-board calibrators that a large satellite utilizes to ensure high quality (radiometric, geometric, spatial quality, etc.) scientific measurement. To address this issue, this work presents “best” vicarious image quality assessment and improvement techniques for those kinds of optical satellites which lack an on-board calibration system. In this article, image quality categories have been explored, and essential quality parameters (absolute and relative calibration, aliasing, etc.) have been identified. For each of the parameters, appropriate characterization methods are identified along with their specifications or requirements. In cases of multiple methods, recommendations have been made based-on the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Furthermore, processing steps have been presented, including examples. Essentially, this paper provides a comprehensive study of the criteria that need to be assessed to evaluate remote sensing satellite data quality, and the best vicarious methodologies to evaluate identified quality parameters such as coherent noise and ground sample distance.

A large-scale remote sensing database for subjective and objective quality assessment of pansharpened images

Pansharpening is a process to fuse a low spatial resolution multispectral image and a high spatial resolution panchromatic image to produce a high-resolution multispectral image. Quality assessment of pansharpened images is challenging due to without actual reference images. There are two main types of assessment methods: reduced resolution (RR) assessment based on Wald’s protocol, and full resolution (FR) assessment without reference. Currently, it is lack of large-scale benchmark databases for subjective and objective performance evaluation of different image pansharpening methods. In this paper, we construct a large-scale database named Pansharpened Remote Sensing Image Quality Database (PRSIQD) from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives, which contains 13,620 pansharpened images acquired from IKONOS, QuickBird, Gaofen-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3 and WorldView-4 satellite sensors. In addition, we have comprehensively analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of the existing pansharpening quality assessment methods on different satellite sensors, thematic datasets and bands.

Full-Reference Quality Metric Based on Neural Network to Assess the Visual Quality of Remote Sensing Images

Remote sensing images are subject to different types of degradations. The visual quality of such images is important because their visual inspection and analysis are still widely used in practice. To characterize the visual quality of remote sensing images, the use of specialized visual quality metrics is desired. Although the attempts to create such metrics are limited, there is a great number of visual quality metrics designed for other applications. Our idea is that some of these metrics can be employed in remote sensing under the condition that those metrics have been designed for the same distortion types. Thus, image databases that contain images with types of distortions that are of interest should be looked for. It has been checked what known visual quality metrics perform well for images with such degradations and an opportunity to design neural network-based combined metrics with improved performance has been studied. It is shown that for such combined metrics, their Spearman correlation coefficient with mean opinion score exceeds 0.97 for subsets of images in the Tampere Image Database (TID2013). Since different types of elementary metric pre-processing and neural network design have been considered, it has been demonstrated that it is enough to have two hidden layers and about twenty inputs. Examples of using known and designed visual quality metrics in remote sensing are presented.

Remote sensing image quality evaluation based on deep support value learning networks

Aiming at the problem that the remote sensing image quality evaluation models with manually extracted features lack robustness and generality, this paper proposes a 3D CNN-based architecture and nuclear power plant for accurate remote sensing image quality assessment. The model incorporates two sub-networks. The DSVL-based sub-network is employed to extract multi-scale, multi-direction and high-level features by layer-wise training. Afterwards, the extracted feature maps are fused as flowed as input data of the second sub-network, which is designed with 3D CNN architecture and nuclear power plant for remote sensing image quality assessment. Experimental results on remote sensing image quality database from the GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 satellites show that the proposed model can optimally discover the essential features of the image and effectively extract the high-frequency information of each level of image, and has better overall quality assessment performance than the other state-of-the-art methods.

Distributed Framework for Processing High Resolution Remote Sensing Images

Now-a-days, sensing of remote satellite data processing is a very challenging task. The current development of satellite technology has led to explosive growth in quantity as well as the quality of the High-Resolution Remote Sensing (HRRS) images. These images can sometimes be in Gigabytes and Terabytes, which is heavy to load into the memory and also takes more time for processing. To address the challenges of processing HRRS images, a distributed map Reduce framework is proposed in this paper. This paper reflects Map-reduce as a distributed model using the Hadoop framework for processing large amounts of images. To process large amounts of images, block-based and size-based methods are introduced for effective processing. From the experiments, the proposed framework has proven to be effective in performance and speed.

Cloud detection in satellite images using multi-objective social spider optimization

Cloud detection algorithms have emerged to automate image data analysis because of its prime influential factor in remote sensing image quality. Cloud detection algorithm still needs domain-expert intervention and large number of training examples to ensure good performance whose acquirement becomes difficult due to unavailability of labeled data as well as the time and process heads involved. The paper puts forward multi-objective social spider optimization (MOSSO) based efficient clustering technique to detect clouds in the visible range. This paper explains the proposed MOSSO algorithm along-with the analysis carried on 14 benchmark two-objective test problems against MOEA/D, MODE, MOPSO and SPEA2 multi-objective algorithms. Further, the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed algorithm are analyzed and have been used for the implementation of an efficient clustering technique named as MOSSO-C. Optimal centroid matrix for clustering is attained in MOSSO-C through environmental selection whose performance evaluation has been done on six synthetic databases and are compared with above mentioned conventional multi-objective algorithms. The obtained results encourage the use of MOSSO-C technique to get labeled data for training process of neural network classifier. This approach efficiently classifies the cloudy pixels against various Earth’s surfaces (water, vegetation and land). The paper also discusses the performance evaluation of proposed technique on four Landsat 8 data which shows on an average 96.37% performance accuracy in detecting cloudy pixels.