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Remote Sens., Volume 14, Issue 20 (October-2 2022) – 218 articles

Cover Story (view full-size image): Changing environmental conditions and inadequate land management are endangering soil quality, which in turn affects crop productivity as well as food security. In this work, advances in hyperspectral remote sensing were exploited to characterize the soil degradation status, as well as its impact on crop growth and agricultural productivity. Within an agricultural area of Central Spain, airborne data covering the VNIR–SWIR–TIR (0.4–12 µm) were acquired, and vegetation properties such as the leaf area index (LAI), the crop water stress index (CWSI), and crop yield were derived and compared to the soil erosion and accumulation stages (SEAS). The results show that crop traits are related to a soil’s degradation status, with highly eroded soils and sandy accumulation zones being associated with areas of low LAI, crop yield, and high crop water stress. View this paper
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21 pages, 2177 KiB  
Article
Design of f-SCAN Acquisition Mode for Synthetic Aperture Radar
by Pietro Guccione, Daniele Mapelli, Davide Giudici and Adriano Rosario Persico
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5283; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205283 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2126
Abstract
This paper presents the design and processing of the SAR acquisition technique named frequency scanning (f-SCAN), aimed to obtain high sensitivity to targets with low backscattering and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in wide-swath systems. The f-SCAN is an interesting alternative to [...] Read more.
This paper presents the design and processing of the SAR acquisition technique named frequency scanning (f-SCAN), aimed to obtain high sensitivity to targets with low backscattering and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in wide-swath systems. The f-SCAN is an interesting alternative to the scanning on receive method (SCORE), which needs multiple phase centres achieved using the digital beam forming (DBF) technique. f-SCAN requires less hardware complexity than SCORE; at the same time, it improves the sidelobes and ambiguities’ suppression. The elements used in f-SCAN to generate the pencil beam are the true time delay lines (TTDLs) and the phase shifters (PSs). The general methodology to design an f-SCAN spaceborne SAR high-resolution wide-swath (HRWS) system is introduced; emphasis is put on the mathematical definition of the timing parameters and on a novel method of using TTDLs to achieve the full spanning of wide swaths. The processing of f-SCAN data is also considered: we introduce a novel algorithm to limit the data volume and to guarantee an almost invariant slant range impulse response function (IRF) by removing spectral distortions. Eventually, new definitions, specific for f-SCAN, of the well-known SAR performance parameters, are provided. Simulation results and performances are presented. The advantages and disadvantages with respect to SCORE are discussed using the design of a real case system. Full article
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25 pages, 9073 KiB  
Article
Evaluating Trade-Off and Synergies of Ecosystem Services Values of a Representative Resources-Based Urban Ecosystem: A Coupled Modeling Framework Applied to Panzhihua City, China
by Jianwen Zeng, Jipeng Xu, Wenyu Li, Xiaoai Dai, Jiayun Zhou, Yunfeng Shan, Junjun Zhang, Weile Li, Heng Lu, Yakang Ye, Li Xu, Shuneng Liang and Youlin Wang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5282; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205282 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2214
Abstract
Following significant urban expansion, the ecological problems of resource-based cities are gradually exposed. It is of great significance to study the ecosystem services of resource-based cities to achieve their sustainable development goals and to alleviate the conflicts between environmental protection and the utilization [...] Read more.
Following significant urban expansion, the ecological problems of resource-based cities are gradually exposed. It is of great significance to study the ecosystem services of resource-based cities to achieve their sustainable development goals and to alleviate the conflicts between environmental protection and the utilization of the surrounding resources. However, in the current research on resource-based cities, few scholars have combined multiple minerals and multiple ecosystem services to explore the impact of mineral resources on the ecosystem. In this study, based on the historical data spanning from 2002 to 2018, we used the CA–Markov model to project the land use of Panzhihua City to 2030. Based on future land use projection, we quantified four ecosystem services (ESs) variables, including water yield, carbon storage, habitat quality, and soil conservation, using the InVEST model from the perspective of land use evolution in Panzhihua City. In addition, we explored the trade-offs and synergies of different ecosystem services and the correlations between different mineral species and ecosystem services using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Results showed the following: (1) During 2002–2018, water yield service, habitat quality service, and carbon storage service of Panzhihua City decreased year by year, and soil conservation service showed significant fluctuations; most of the low ESs areas were distributed in the central region of Panzhihua. On the contrary, most high ESs areas were located in the forest region. (2) The trade-offs and synergistic relationships among different ecosystem services showed significant spatial variations. There were synergistic relationships among ESs and weak trade-offs between water yield services, soil conservation, and habitat quality services. There was also significant spatial variability in the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services, with water production services showing “east trade-offs and west synergies” with soil conservation and habitat quality services, and most of the rest showing trade-offs in urban areas. (3) ESs in mining areas showed trade-offs in general, mainly between water production services and carbon storage services, with clay as the major negative factor of mineral species, and iron ore mines that have undergone ecological protection construction showed the lowest negative impact on ecology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing Applications in Urban Ecosystem Services)
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20 pages, 687 KiB  
Article
ANFIS-EKF-Based Single-Beacon Localization Algorithm for AUV
by Wanlong Zhao, Huifeng Zhao, Gongliang Liu and Guoyao Zhang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5281; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205281 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1216
Abstract
Singe-beacon localization technology can help Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to obtain precise positions by deploying only one beacon. It is considered as a promising way, benefiting from saving much time and labor compared with traditional Long-Baseline Localization (LBL). A typical single-beacon localization scheme [...] Read more.
Singe-beacon localization technology can help Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to obtain precise positions by deploying only one beacon. It is considered as a promising way, benefiting from saving much time and labor compared with traditional Long-Baseline Localization (LBL). A typical single-beacon localization scheme contains two essential questions: the initial observability problem and long-endurance trajectory tracking problem. Aiming at these core problems, a comprehensive solution for single-beacon localization is described in this paper. An multi-hypothesis initial position discriminant method is proposed firstly, which helps to achieve accurate initial location based on observability analysis. Then, an Adaptive Network Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS)-improved Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) method is proposed, in which single-beacon measuring information is fused with off-the-shelf sensors, including DVL, Compass, etc. ANFIS-EKF can help to improve trajectory tracking precisions by restraining the heavy loss of linearization in conventional EKF. Both simulation and field tests are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed algorithms. Full article
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21 pages, 5134 KiB  
Article
Developing a Dual-Stream Deep-Learning Neural Network Model for Improving County-Level Winter Wheat Yield Estimates in China
by Hai Huang, Jianxi Huang, Quanlong Feng, Junming Liu, Xuecao Li, Xinlei Wang and Quandi Niu
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5280; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205280 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2009
Abstract
Accurate and timely crop yield prediction over large spatial regions is critical to national food security and sustainable agricultural development. However, designing a robust model for crop yield prediction over a large spatial region remains challenging due to inadequate surveyed samples and an [...] Read more.
Accurate and timely crop yield prediction over large spatial regions is critical to national food security and sustainable agricultural development. However, designing a robust model for crop yield prediction over a large spatial region remains challenging due to inadequate surveyed samples and an under-development of deep-learning frameworks. To tackle this issue, we integrated multi-source (remote sensing, weather, and soil properties) data into a dual-stream deep-learning neural network model for winter wheat in China’s major planting regions. The model consists of two branches for robust feature learning: one for sequential data (remote sensing and weather series data) and the other for statical data (soil properties). The extracted features by both branches were aggregated through an adaptive fusion model to forecast the final wheat yield. We trained and tested the model by using official county-level statistics of historical winter wheat yields. The model achieved an average R2 of 0.79 and a root-mean-square error of 650.21 kg/ha, superior to the compared methods and outperforming traditional machine-learning methods. The dual-stream deep-learning neural network model provided decent in-season yield prediction, with an error of about 13% compared to official statistics about two months before harvest. By effectively extracting and aggregating features from multi-source datasets, the new approach provides a practical approach to predicting winter wheat yields at the county scale over large spatial regions. Full article
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19 pages, 4044 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Patterns and Driving Factors of Ecological Vulnerability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Based on the Google Earth Engine
by Zhengyuan Zhao, Ting Li, Yunlong Zhang, Da Lü, Cong Wang, Yihe Lü and Xing Wu
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5279; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205279 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1870
Abstract
With the background of climate change and intensified human activities, environmental problems are becoming increasingly prominent on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). For the development of efficient environmental policies and protection measures, quick and accurate assessments of the spatiotemporal patterns in ecological vulnerability are [...] Read more.
With the background of climate change and intensified human activities, environmental problems are becoming increasingly prominent on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). For the development of efficient environmental policies and protection measures, quick and accurate assessments of the spatiotemporal patterns in ecological vulnerability are crucial. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, we used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and human footprint (HFP) datasets to analyze the spatiotemporal distributions and main driving factors of the remote sensing ecological vulnerability index (RSEVI) for the QTP. Moreover, spatial autocorrelation analysis and the standard deviational ellipse (SDE) were used to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics. Our results showed that the RSEVI gradually increased from the southeast to the northwest of the QTP. From 2000 to 2018, the potential vulnerability area increased by 6.59 × 104 km2, while the extreme vulnerability area decreased by 1.84 × 104 km2. Moran’s I value of the RSEVI was greater than 0 and increased, indicating that the aggregation degree was increasing. The gravity center was located in Nagqu, Tibet, and shifted to the northwest from 2000 to 2015 and to the southeast from 2015 to 2018. The SDE rotated in a counterclockwise direction. The three most important driving factors of ecological vulnerability were wetness, land surface temperature (LST), and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), indicating that climate and vegetation were the dominant factors. Moreover, this study developed a promising method for the ecological vulnerability assessment of large-scale and long time series datasets, and it provides theoretical support for the ecological conservation and sustainable development of the QTP under global change. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing of Ecosystems)
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16 pages, 2224 KiB  
Article
Ensemble Three-Dimensional Habitat Modeling of Indian Ocean Immature Albacore Tuna (Thunnus alalunga) Using Remote Sensing Data
by Sandipan Mondal, Yi-Chen Wang, Ming-An Lee, Jinn-Shing Weng and Biraj Kanti Mondal
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5278; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205278 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1269
Abstract
This study evaluated the vertical distribution of immature albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) in the Indian Ocean as a function of various environmental parameters. Albacore tuna fishing data were gathered from the logbooks of large-sized Taiwanese longline vessels. Fishery and environmental data [...] Read more.
This study evaluated the vertical distribution of immature albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) in the Indian Ocean as a function of various environmental parameters. Albacore tuna fishing data were gathered from the logbooks of large-sized Taiwanese longline vessels. Fishery and environmental data for the period from 1998 to 2016 were collected. In addition to the surface variable, the most influential vertical temperature, dissolved oxygen (OXY), chlorophyll, and salinity layers were found at various depths (i.e., 5, 26, and 53 m for SST; 200, 244, and 147 m for OXY; 508, 628, and 411 for SSCI; and 411, 508, and 773 m for SSS) among 20 vertical layers based on Akaike criterion information value of generalized linear model. Relative to the 20 vertical layers base models, these layers had the lowest Akaike information criteria. For the correlation between the standardized and predicted catch per unit effort (CPUE), the correlation values for the generalized linear model (GLM), generalized additive model (GAM), boosted regression tree (BRT), and random forest (RF) model were 0.798, 0.832, 0.841, and 0.856, respectively. The GAM-, BRT-, and RF-derived full models were selected, whereas the GLM-derived full model was excluded because its correlation value was the lowest among the four models. From March to September, a higher immature albacore standardized CPUE was mainly observed from 30°S to 40°S. A northward shift was observed after September, and the standardized CPUE was mainly concentrated at the south coast of Madagascar from November to January. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing Applied to Marine Species Distribution)
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31 pages, 691 KiB  
Review
Scalability and Performance of LiDAR Point Cloud Data Management Systems: A State-of-the-Art Review
by Chamin Nalinda Lokugam Hewage, Debra F. Laefer, Anh-Vu Vo, Nhien-An Le-Khac and Michela Bertolotto
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5277; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205277 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2020
Abstract
Current state-of-the-art point cloud data management (PCDM) systems rely on a variety of parallel architectures and diverse data models. The main objective of these implementations is achieving higher scalability without compromising performance. This paper reviews the scalability and performance of state-of-the-art PCDM systems [...] Read more.
Current state-of-the-art point cloud data management (PCDM) systems rely on a variety of parallel architectures and diverse data models. The main objective of these implementations is achieving higher scalability without compromising performance. This paper reviews the scalability and performance of state-of-the-art PCDM systems with respect to both parallel architectures and data models. More specifically, in terms of parallel architectures, shared-memory architecture, shared-disk architecture, and shared-nothing architecture are considered. In terms of data models, relational models, and novel data models (such as wide-column models) are considered. New structured query language (NewSQL) models are considered. The impacts of parallel architectures and data models are discussed with respect to theoretical perspectives and in the context of existing PCDM implementations. Based on the review, a methodical approach for the selection of parallel architectures and data models for highly scalable and performance-efficient PCDM system development is proposed. Finally, notable research gaps in the PCDM literature are presented as possible directions for future research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Engineering Remote Sensing)
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24 pages, 6473 KiB  
Article
A Group-Wise Feature Enhancement-and-Fusion Network with Dual-Polarization Feature Enrichment for SAR Ship Detection
by Xiaowo Xu, Xiaoling Zhang, Zikang Shao, Jun Shi, Shunjun Wei, Tianwen Zhang and Tianjiao Zeng
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5276; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205276 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 29 | Viewed by 1601
Abstract
Ship detection in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is a significant and challenging task. However, most existing deep learning-based SAR ship detection approaches are confined to single-polarization SAR images and fail to leverage dual-polarization characteristics, which increases the difficulty of further improving the [...] Read more.
Ship detection in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is a significant and challenging task. However, most existing deep learning-based SAR ship detection approaches are confined to single-polarization SAR images and fail to leverage dual-polarization characteristics, which increases the difficulty of further improving the detection performance. One problem that requires a solution is how to make full use of the dual-polarization characteristics and how to excavate polarization features using the ship detection network. To tackle the problem, we propose a group-wise feature enhancement-and-fusion network with dual-polarization feature enrichment (GWFEF-Net) for better dual-polarization SAR ship detection. GWFEF-Net offers four contributions: (1) dual-polarization feature enrichment (DFE) for enriching the feature library and suppressing clutter interferences to facilitate feature extraction; (2) group-wise feature enhancement (GFE) for enhancing each polarization semantic feature to highlight each polarization feature region; (3) group-wise feature fusion (GFF) for fusing multi-scale polarization features to realize polarization features’ group-wise information interaction; (4) hybrid pooling channel attention (HPCA) for channel modeling to balance each polarization feature’s contribution. We conduct sufficient ablation studies to verify the effectiveness of each contribution. Extensive experiments on the Sentinel-1 dual-polarization SAR ship dataset demonstrate the superior performance of GWFEF-Net, with 94.18% in average precision (AP), compared with the other ten competitive methods. Specifically, GWFEF-Net can yield a 2.51% AP improvement compared with the second-best method. Full article
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4 pages, 200 KiB  
Editorial
An Overview of Vegetation Dynamics Revealed by Remote Sensing and Its Feedback to Regional and Global Climate
by Xuejia Wang, Tinghai Ou, Wenxin Zhang and Youhua Ran
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5275; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205275 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1423
Abstract
Vegetation, as one of the crucial underlying land surfaces, plays an important role in terrestrial ecosystems and the Earth’s climate system through the alternation of its phenology, type, structure, and function [...] Full article
17 pages, 11665 KiB  
Technical Note
Methods and Algorithms of Subsurface Holographic Sounding
by A. V. Popov, A. E. Reznikov, A. I. Berkut, D. E. Edemsky, P. A. Morozov and I. V. Prokopovich
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5274; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205274 - 21 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1223
Abstract
In our experiments, we develop and test portable multi-element receiver antenna arrays, electrically scanned in order to immediately obtain a recognizable image of subsurface objects. Two quadrature components of the radar return signal are processed with a Kirchhoff backward migration algorithm. Physical theory [...] Read more.
In our experiments, we develop and test portable multi-element receiver antenna arrays, electrically scanned in order to immediately obtain a recognizable image of subsurface objects. Two quadrature components of the radar return signal are processed with a Kirchhoff backward migration algorithm. Physical theory is used to assess the quality of the holographic image, and the synthetic aperture approach is developed and tested. The parabolic wave equation and Gaussian beam technique are used in order to take into account refraction effects and to suppress specular reflection from the air-ground interface. Laboratory and field tests confirmed the predicted device parameters. Full article
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23 pages, 13033 KiB  
Article
Remote Sensing of Coastal Wetland Degradation Using the Landscape Directional Succession Model
by Linlin Cui, Guosheng Li, Huajun Liao, Ninglei Ouyang, Xingyue Li and Dan Liu
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5273; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205273 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1535
Abstract
In recent decades, human activities have impaired the structure, function, and diversity of coastal wetland ecosystems, and there is a need for the rational planning of ecological restoration to curb wetland degradation. However, the challenge remains to quickly and accurately identify degraded wetland [...] Read more.
In recent decades, human activities have impaired the structure, function, and diversity of coastal wetland ecosystems, and there is a need for the rational planning of ecological restoration to curb wetland degradation. However, the challenge remains to quickly and accurately identify degraded wetland areas and their degradation levels. In this study, we used remote sensing interpretation data from 1980 to 2020 and the wetland degradation evaluation method based on a landscape directional succession model to quantify the spatial and temporal characteristics of wetland degradation in Jiangsu Province, China. The key findings showed that 3020.67 km2 of wetlands became degraded over the 40 years of this study, accounting for 42.74% of the total area of coastal wetlands, and that the overall degradation was mild. This degradation presented significant spatial differences, with the wetland degradation in Yancheng City observed to be more serious than that in Nantong City. Degradation mainly occurred in Sheyang County, Dafeng District, Dongtai City, and Rudong County, and the spatial distribution pattern of severe and moderate degradation, mild degradation, and non-degradation was observed from land to sea in that order. The degradation of wetlands was observed to have obvious stages, and the degradation of coastal wetlands in the study area from 1980 to 2020 showed a significant increasing trend. The comprehensive score of wetland degradation in 2020 (1.67) was 3.70 times that in 1985 (0.45), and the turning point occurred in 2000. The types of wetland degradation were dominated by the transformation of natural wetlands into construction land (coastal industry), fish farming, and arable land, as well as the invasion of exotic species. Although great efforts have been made in recent years to protect and restore coastal wetlands, the development and utilization of coastal wetland resources should be strictly controlled to achieve the goal of sustainable development in coastal areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Remote Sensing in Coastal Ecosystem Monitoring)
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23 pages, 5732 KiB  
Article
A Deep Learning Based Method for Railway Overhead Wire Reconstruction from Airborne LiDAR Data
by Lele Zhang, Jinhu Wang, Yueqian Shen, Jian Liang, Yuyu Chen, Linsheng Chen and Mei Zhou
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5272; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205272 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2211
Abstract
Automatically and accurately reconstructing the overhead wires of railway from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data are an efficient way of railway monitoring to ensure stable and safety transportation services. However, due to the complex structure of the overhead wires, it is challenging to [...] Read more.
Automatically and accurately reconstructing the overhead wires of railway from airborne laser scanning (ALS) data are an efficient way of railway monitoring to ensure stable and safety transportation services. However, due to the complex structure of the overhead wires, it is challenging to extract these wires using the existing methods. This work proposes a workflow for railway overhead wire reconstruction using deep learning for wire identification collaborating with the RANdom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC) algorithm for wire reconstruction. First, data augmentation and ground points down-sampling are performed to facilitate the issues caused by insufficient and non-uniformity of LiDAR points. Then, a network incorporating with PointNet model is proposed to segment wires, pylons and ground points. The proposed network is composed of a Geometry Feature Extraction (GFE) module and a Neighborhood Information Aggregation (NIA) module. These two modules are introduced to encode and describe the local geometric features. Therefore, the capability of the model to discriminate geometric details is enhanced. Finally, a wire individualization and multi-wire fitting algorithm is proposed to reconstruct the overhead wires. A number of experiments are conducted using ALS point cloud data of railway scenarios. The results show that the accuracy and MIoU for wire identification are 96.89% and 82.56%, respectively, which demonstrates a better performance compared to the existing methods. The overall reconstruction accuracy is 96% over the study area. Furthermore, the presented strategy also demonstrated its applicability to high-voltage powerline scenarios. Full article
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23 pages, 8833 KiB  
Article
Registration of Building Scan with IFC-Based BIM Using the Corner Points
by Noaman Akbar Sheik, Peter Veelaert and Greet Deruyter
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5271; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205271 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1651
Abstract
Progress monitoring is an essential part of large construction projects. As manual progress monitoring is time-consuming, the need for automation emerges, especially as, nowadays, BIM for the design of buildings and laser scanning for capturing the as-built situation have become well adopted. However, [...] Read more.
Progress monitoring is an essential part of large construction projects. As manual progress monitoring is time-consuming, the need for automation emerges, especially as, nowadays, BIM for the design of buildings and laser scanning for capturing the as-built situation have become well adopted. However, to be able to compare the as-built model obtained by laser scanning to the BIM design, both models need to use the same reference system, which often is not the case. Transforming the coordinate system of the as-built model into the BIM model is a specialist process that is pre-requisite in automated construction progress monitoring. The research described in this paper is aimed at the automation of this so-called registration process and is based on the dominant planar geometry of most buildings with evident corner points in their structures. After extracting these corner points from both the as-built and the design model, a RANSAC-based pairwise assessment of the points is performed to identify potential matching points in both models using different discriminative geometric invariants. Next, the transformation for the potential matches is evaluated to find all the matching points. In the end, the most accurate transformation parameter is determined from the individual transformation parameters of all the matching corner points. The proposed method was tested and validated with a range of both simulated and real-life datasets. In all the case studies including the simulated and real-life datasets, the registration was successful and accurate. Furthermore, the method allows for the registration of the as-built models of incomplete buildings, which is essential for effective construction progress monitoring. As the method uses the standard IFC schema for data exchange with the BIM, there is no loss of geometrical information caused by data conversions and it supports the complete automation of the progress-monitoring process. Full article
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29 pages, 7600 KiB  
Article
Unblurring ISAR Imaging for Maneuvering Target Based on UFGAN
by Wenzhe Li, Yanxin Yuan, Yuanpeng Zhang and Ying Luo
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5270; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205270 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1831
Abstract
Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging for maneuvering targets suffers from a Doppler frequency time-varying problem, leading to the ISAR images blurred in the azimuth direction. Given that the traditional imaging methods have poor imaging performance or low efficiency, and the existing deep [...] Read more.
Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging for maneuvering targets suffers from a Doppler frequency time-varying problem, leading to the ISAR images blurred in the azimuth direction. Given that the traditional imaging methods have poor imaging performance or low efficiency, and the existing deep learning imaging methods cannot effectively reconstruct the deblurred ISAR images retaining rich details and textures, an unblurring ISAR imaging method based on an advanced Transformer structure for maneuvering targets is proposed. We first present a pseudo-measured data generation method based on the DeepLabv3+ network and Diamond-Square algorithm to acquire an ISAR dataset for training with good generalization to measured data. Next, with the locally-enhanced window Transformer block adopted to enhance the ability to capture local context as well as global dependencies, we construct a novel Uformer-based GAN (UFGAN) to restore the deblurred ISAR images with rich details and textures from blurred imaging results. The simulation and measured experiments show that the proposed method can achieve fast and high-quality imaging for maneuvering targets under the condition of a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and sparse aperture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue SAR Images Processing and Analysis)
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19 pages, 12517 KiB  
Article
Unsustainable Anthropogenic Activities: A Paired Watershed Approach of Lake Urmia (Iran) and Lake Van (Turkey)
by Sajad Khoshnood, Aynaz Lotfata and Ayyoob Sharifi
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5269; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205269 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1891
Abstract
Water availability in lakes must be studied in order to better manage ecosystems within lake basins and meet economic development needs. Despite being Iran’s largest lake, Lake Urmia’s water level and surface area have declined dramatically over the past two decades. During the [...] Read more.
Water availability in lakes must be studied in order to better manage ecosystems within lake basins and meet economic development needs. Despite being Iran’s largest lake, Lake Urmia’s water level and surface area have declined dramatically over the past two decades. During the same period, Lake Van in Turkey maintained a relatively stable water level and surface area. As a result, comparing factors related to water level and surface area in these lakes, which have similar geographical and climate conditions but different management policies, can be an appropriate way to identify the causes of water declines in Lake Urmia. Comparing these variables may help explain observed differences in lake behavior between 2000 and 2016. Hydrometric and climatic parameters, as well as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), were used to achieve this goal. Changes in precipitation, temperature, and evapotranspiration in both lakes show essentially identical trends, but this is not a convincing explanation for Lake Urmia’s water surface changes. The results revealed that dam construction and water diversion projects, the expansion of irrigated agriculture, and the lake’s shallow depth in most parts were the primary causes of Lake Urmia’s shrinkage compared to Lake Van. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Geospatial Methods and Techniques for Urban Water Management)
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21 pages, 5539 KiB  
Article
YOLO-SD: Small Ship Detection in SAR Images by Multi-Scale Convolution and Feature Transformer Module
by Simin Wang, Song Gao, Lun Zhou, Ruochen Liu, Hengsheng Zhang, Jiaming Liu, Yong Jia and Jiang Qian
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5268; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205268 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 2726
Abstract
As an outstanding method for ocean monitoring, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has received much attention from scholars in recent years. With the rapid advances in the field of SAR technology and image processing, significant progress has also been made in ship detection in [...] Read more.
As an outstanding method for ocean monitoring, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has received much attention from scholars in recent years. With the rapid advances in the field of SAR technology and image processing, significant progress has also been made in ship detection in SAR images. When dealing with large-scale ships on a wide sea surface, most existing algorithms can achieve great detection results. However, small ships in SAR images contain little feature information. It is difficult to differentiate them from the background clutter, and there is the problem of a low detection rate and high false alarms. To improve the detection accuracy for small ships, we propose an efficient ship detection model based on YOLOX, named YOLO-Ship Detection (YOLO-SD). First, Multi-Scale Convolution (MSC) is proposed to fuse feature information at different scales so as to resolve the problem of unbalanced semantic information in the lower layer and improve the ability of feature extraction. Further, the Feature Transformer Module (FTM) is designed to capture global features and link them to the context for the purpose of optimizing high-layer semantic information and ultimately achieving excellent detection performance. A large number of experiments on the HRSID and LS-SSDD-v1.0 datasets show that YOLO-SD achieves a better detection performance than the baseline YOLOX. Compared with other excellent object detection models, YOLO-SD still has an edge in terms of overall performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microwave Remote Sensing for Object Detection)
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22 pages, 11227 KiB  
Article
Sliding Window Detection and Analysis Method of Night-Time Light Remote Sensing Time Series—A Case Study of the Torch Festival in Yunnan Province, China
by Lu Song, Jing Wang, Yiyang Zhang, Fei Zhao, Sijin Zhu, Leyi Jiang, Qingyun Du, Xiaoqing Zhao and Yimin Li
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5267; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205267 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1944
Abstract
The spatial distribution of night-time lights (NTL) provides a new perspective for studying the range and influence of human activities. However, most studies employing NTL time series are based on monthly or annual composite data, and time series studies incorporating sliding windows are [...] Read more.
The spatial distribution of night-time lights (NTL) provides a new perspective for studying the range and influence of human activities. However, most studies employing NTL time series are based on monthly or annual composite data, and time series studies incorporating sliding windows are currently lacking. Therefore, using National Polar-Orbiting Partnership’s visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (NPP-VIIRS) night-time light remote sensing (NTLRS) data, VNP46A2, toponym, and Yunnan census statistical data, this study proposes a sliding-window-based NTLRS time series detection and analysis method. We extracted ethnic minority areas on the PyCharm platform using ethnic minority population proportion data and toponym and excluding data representing interference from urban areas. We used a sliding window approach to analyze NTLRS time series data of each ethnic group and calculated the cosine similarity between the NTL brightness curve of original data and the sliding window analysis result. The cosine similarity was greater than 0.96 from 2018 to 2020; we also conducted a field trip to the 2019 Torch Festival to demonstrate the applicability of the employed method. Finally, the temporal and spatial pattern of the Torch Festival was analyzed using the festival in Yunnan Province as an example. Results showed that the Torch Festival, mostly celebrated by the Yi ethnic group, was usually held on the 24th (and ranged from the 22nd to 26th) day in the sixth month of the lunar calendar (LC) every year. We found that during the Torch Festival, the greater the increase in the percentage of NTL brightness reduction in the main urban area of Kunming, the greater the percentage of ethnic minorities’ NTL brightness. The width of the sliding window can be adjusted appropriately according to the research objective, with these results showing good continuity. Our study presents a new application of the sliding window approach in the field of remote sensing, suitable for research into festivals related to night lights and fire all over the world. Full article
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18 pages, 8624 KiB  
Article
Exploring Spatial Network Structure of the Metropolitan Circle Based on Multi-Source Big Data: A Case Study of Hangzhou Metropolitan Circle
by Jing Zhang, Qi Hao, Xinming Chen, Congmou Zhu, Ling Zhang, Mengjia Hong, Jiexia Wu and Muye Gan
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5266; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205266 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1564
Abstract
The metropolitan circle is the basic unit of regional competition. Enhancing the connection between cities in the metropolitan circle and optimizing the spatial layout of the metropolitan circle is one of the goals of regional high-quality development in the new era. Therefore, it [...] Read more.
The metropolitan circle is the basic unit of regional competition. Enhancing the connection between cities in the metropolitan circle and optimizing the spatial layout of the metropolitan circle is one of the goals of regional high-quality development in the new era. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyze the spatial network structure of the metropolitan circle. Taking Hangzhou metropolitan circle as an example, this study used web crawler technology to obtain data in multiple Internet big data platforms; used centrality analysis, flow data model, and social network analysis to construct the network connection matrix of human flow, goods flow, capital flow, information flow, and traffic flow; and explored the spatial network structure of the metropolitan circle. The results showed that the node intensity of the metropolitan circle presented a distribution pattern of strong in the east and weak in the west. The network connections of each county under the action of different element flows were different, and the skeleton of the integrated flow network connections showed a starfish-shaped feature. Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Shaoxing cities had strong group effects in goods flow and traffic flow, while Quzhou and Huangshan cities had relatively independent cohesive subgroups in human flow and information flow. This study can provide useful references for regional development and spatial planning implementation. Full article
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25 pages, 10667 KiB  
Article
Spatial Gap-Filling of GK2A Daily Sea Surface Temperature (SST) around the Korean Peninsula Using Meteorological Data and Regression Residual Kriging (RRK)
by Jihye Ahn and Yangwon Lee
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5265; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205265 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1444
Abstract
Satellite remote sensing can measure large ocean surface areas, but the infrared-based sea surface temperature (SST) might not be correctly calculated for the pixels under clouds, resulting in missing values in satellite images. Early studies for the gap-free raster maps of satellite SST [...] Read more.
Satellite remote sensing can measure large ocean surface areas, but the infrared-based sea surface temperature (SST) might not be correctly calculated for the pixels under clouds, resulting in missing values in satellite images. Early studies for the gap-free raster maps of satellite SST were based on spatial interpolation using in situ measurements. In this paper, however, an alternative spatial gap-filling method using regression residual kriging (RRK) for the Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite-2A (GK2A) daily SST was examined for the seas around the Korean Peninsula. Extreme outliers were first removed from the in situ measurements and the GK2A daily SST images using multi-step statistical procedures. For the pixels on the in situ measurements after the quality control, a multiple linear regression (MLR) model was built using the selected meteorological variables such as daily SST climatology value, specific humidity, and maximum wind speed. The irregular point residuals from the MLR model were transformed into a residual grid by optimized kriging for the residual compensation for the MLR estimation of the null pixels. The RRK residual compensation method improved accuracy considerably compared with the in situ measurements. The gap-filled 18,876 pixels showed the mean bias error (MBE) of −0.001 °C, the mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.315 °C, the root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.550 °C, and the correlation coefficient (CC) of 0.994. The case studies made sure that the gap-filled SST with RRK had very similar values to the in situ measurements to those of the MLR-only method. This was more apparent in the typhoon case: our RRK result was also stable under the influence of typhoons because it can cope with the abrupt changes in marine meteorology. Full article
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15 pages, 5065 KiB  
Article
Applicability Assessment of Coherent Doppler Wind LiDAR for Monitoring during Dusty Weather at the Northern Edge of the Tibetan Plateau
by Meiqi Song, Yu Wang, Ali Mamtimin, Jiacheng Gao, Ailiyaer Aihaiti, Chenglong Zhou, Fan Yang, Wen Huo, Cong Wen and Bo Wang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5264; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205264 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1448
Abstract
Wind profile light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is an important tool for observing features within the atmospheric boundary layer. Observations of the wind field and boundary layer height from coherent Doppler wind LiDARs (CDWLs) under sandy and dusty weather conditions were evaluated using [...] Read more.
Wind profile light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is an important tool for observing features within the atmospheric boundary layer. Observations of the wind field and boundary layer height from coherent Doppler wind LiDARs (CDWLs) under sandy and dusty weather conditions were evaluated using observations from two CDWLs and one GTS radio sounding located at the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau from 1 May to 30 August 2021. The results showed that CDWL has good applicability in reproducing wind fields in dust, precipitation, and in clear-sky conditions, and that it is superior to the v wind field for real measurements of the u wind fields. In terms of the planetary boundary layer height (PBLH), the validity of the inversion of PBLH in dusty weather was higher than that under clear-sky conditions. It was found that the PBLH retrieved by the CDWL at 20:00 (BJT) was better than that at 08:00 (BJT). The diurnal variation amplitude of the PBLH before the occurrence of a sandstorm was larger than the diurnal variation amplitude of the PBLH occurring during a sandstorm. Full article
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30 pages, 7619 KiB  
Article
SUNS: A User-Friendly Scheme for Seamless and Ubiquitous Navigation Based on an Enhanced Indoor-Outdoor Environmental Awareness Approach
by Ahmed Mansour and Wu Chen
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5263; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205263 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1710
Abstract
Ubiquitous and seamless indoor-outdoor (I/O) localization is the primary objective for gaining more user satisfaction and sustaining the prosperity of the location-based services (LBS) market. Regular users, on the other hand, may be unaware of the impact of activating multiple localization sources on [...] Read more.
Ubiquitous and seamless indoor-outdoor (I/O) localization is the primary objective for gaining more user satisfaction and sustaining the prosperity of the location-based services (LBS) market. Regular users, on the other hand, may be unaware of the impact of activating multiple localization sources on localization performance and energy consumption, or may lack experience deciding when to enable or disable localization sources in different environments. Consequently, an automatic handover mechanism that can handle these decisions on a user’s behalf can appreciably improve user satisfaction. This study introduces an enhanced I/O environmental awareness service that provides an automated handover mechanism for seamless navigation based on multi-sensory navigation integration schemes. Moreover, the proposed service utilizes low-power consumption sensor (LPCS) indicators to execute continuous detection tasks and invoke GNSS in confusion scenarios, and transition intervals to make the most firm decision on the credibility of the LPCS-triggered transition and compensate for indicator thresholds. In this manner, GNSS are used for short intervals that help reduce detection latency and power consumption. Consequently, the proposed service guarantees accurate and reliable I/O detection while preserving low power consumption. Leveraging the proposed service as an automated handover helped realize seamless indoor-outdoor localization with less switching latency, using an integrated solution based on extended Kalman filter. Furthermore, the proposed energy-efficient service was utilized to confine crowdsourced data collection to the required areas (indoors and semi-indoors) and prevent excess data collection outdoors, thereby reducing power drainage. Accordingly, the negative impact of data collection on the user’s device can be mitigated, participation can be encouraged, and crowdsourcing systems can be widely adopted. Full article
(This article belongs to the Topic Multi-Sensor Integrated Navigation Systems)
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23 pages, 12463 KiB  
Article
Downscaling SMAP Brightness Temperatures to 3 km Using CYGNSS Reflectivity Observations: Factors That Affect Spatial Heterogeneity
by Liza J. Wernicke, Clara C. Chew, Eric E. Small and Narendra N. Das
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5262; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205262 - 21 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1376
Abstract
NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission only retrieved ~2.5 months of 3 km near surface soil moisture (NSSM) before its radar transmitter malfunctioned. NSSM remains an important area of study, and multiple applications would benefit from 3 km NSSM data. With the [...] Read more.
NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission only retrieved ~2.5 months of 3 km near surface soil moisture (NSSM) before its radar transmitter malfunctioned. NSSM remains an important area of study, and multiple applications would benefit from 3 km NSSM data. With the goal of creating a 3 km NSSM product, we developed an algorithm to downscale SMAP brightness temperatures (TBs) using Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) reflectivity data. The purpose of downscaling SMAP TB is to represent the spatial heterogeneity of TB at a finer scale than possible via passive microwave data alone. Our SMAP/CYGNSS TB downscaling algorithm uses β as a scaling factor that adjusts TB based on variations in CYGNSS reflectivity. β is the spatially varying slope of the negative linear relationship between SMAP emissivity (TB divided by surface temperature) and CYGNSS reflectivity. In this paper, we describe the SMAP/CYGNSS TB downscaling algorithm and its uncertainties and we analyze the factors that affect the spatial patterns of SMAP/CYGNSS β. 3 km SMAP/CYGNSS TBs are more spatially heterogeneous than 9 km SMAP enhanced TBs. The median root mean square difference (RMSD) between 3 km SMAP/CYGNSS TBs and 9 km SMAP TBs is 3.03 K. Additionally, 3 km SMAP/CYGNSS TBs capture expected NSSM patterns on the landscape. Lower (more negative) β values yield greater spatial heterogeneity in SMAP/CYGNSS TBs and are generally found in areas with low topographic roughness (<350 m), moderate NSSM variance (~0.01–0.0325), low-to-moderate mean annual precipitation (~0.25–1.5 m), and moderate mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices (~0.2–0.6). β values are lowest in croplands and grasslands and highest in forested and barren lands. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Latest Developments and Solutions Integrating GNSS and Remote Sensing)
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22 pages, 1443 KiB  
Article
Co-Correcting: Combat Noisy Labels in Space Debris Detection
by Hui Li, Zhaodong Niu, Quan Sun and Yabo Li
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5261; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205261 - 21 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1268
Abstract
Space debris detection is vital to space missions and space situation awareness. Convolutional neural networks are introduced to detect space debris due to their excellent performance. However, noisy labels, caused by false alarms, exist in space debris detection, and cause ambiguous targets for [...] Read more.
Space debris detection is vital to space missions and space situation awareness. Convolutional neural networks are introduced to detect space debris due to their excellent performance. However, noisy labels, caused by false alarms, exist in space debris detection, and cause ambiguous targets for the training of networks, leading to networks overfitting the noisy labels and losing the ability to detect space debris. To remedy this challenge, we introduce label-noise learning to space debris detection and propose a novel label-noise learning paradigm, termed Co-correcting, to overcome the effects of noisy labels. Co-correcting comprises two identical networks, and the predictions of these networks serve as auxiliary supervised information to mutually correct the noisy labels of their peer networks. In this manner, the effect of noisy labels can be mitigated by the mutual rectification of the two networks. Empirical experiments show that Co-correcting outperforms other state-of-the-art methods of label-noise learning, such as Co-teaching and JoCoR, in space debris detection. Even with a high label noise rate, the network trained via Co-correcting can detect space debris with high detection probability. Full article
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22 pages, 9406 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Internal Angle Error of UAV LiDAR Based on Rotating Mirror Scanning
by Hao Zhou, Qingzhou Mao, Yufei Song, Anlei Wu and Xueqing Hu
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5260; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205260 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1749
Abstract
UAV LiDAR is a powerful tool for rapidly acquiring ground-based 3D spatial information and has been used in various applications. In addition to the ranging mechanism, the scanning method is also an important factor, affecting the performance of UAV LiDAR, and the internal [...] Read more.
UAV LiDAR is a powerful tool for rapidly acquiring ground-based 3D spatial information and has been used in various applications. In addition to the ranging mechanism, the scanning method is also an important factor, affecting the performance of UAV LiDAR, and the internal angle error of LiDAR will seriously affect its measurement accuracy. Starting from the rotary scanning model of a single-sided mirror, this paper presents a comparative study of the characteristics of 45° single-sided mirror scanning, polygon prism scanning, polygon tower mirror scanning, and wedge mirror scanning. The error sources of the quadrangular tower mirror scanning are analyzed in detail, including the angle deviation between the direction of emitted laser and the rotation axis (typical 0.13 ± 0.18° and 0.85° ± 0.26°), the angle deviation between the mirror’s reflection plane and the rotation axis, and the surface angle deviation between multiple surfaces (typical ± 0.06°). As a result, the measurement deviation caused by the internal angle error can be as high as decimeter to meter, which cannot be fully compensated by simply adjusting the installation angle between the UAV and the LiDAR. After the calibration of the internal angle error, the standard deviation of the elevation difference between the point cloud and the control point is only 0.024 m in the flight experiment at 300 m altitude. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Application of UAV with LiDAR Data)
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19 pages, 7819 KiB  
Article
Feature-Ensemble-Based Crop Mapping for Multi-Temporal Sentinel-2 Data Using Oversampling Algorithms and Gray Wolf Optimizer Support Vector Machine
by Haitian Zhang, Maofang Gao and Chao Ren
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5259; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205259 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1381
Abstract
Accurate spatial distribution and area of crops are important basic data for assessing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. Traditional classification methods tend to fit most categories, which will cause the classification accuracy of major crops and minor crops to be too low. [...] Read more.
Accurate spatial distribution and area of crops are important basic data for assessing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. Traditional classification methods tend to fit most categories, which will cause the classification accuracy of major crops and minor crops to be too low. Therefore, we proposed an improved Gray Wolf Optimizer support vector machine (GWO-SVM) method with oversampling algorithm to solve the imbalance-class problem in the classification process and improve the classification accuracy of complex crops. Fifteen feature bands were selected based on feature importance evaluation and correlation analysis. Five different smote methods were used to detect samples imbalanced with respect to major and minor crops. In addition, the classification results were compared with support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) classifier. In order to improve the classification accuracy, we proposed a combined improved GWO-SVM algorithm, using an oversampling algorithm(smote) to extract major crops and minor crops and use SVM and RF as classification comparison methods. The experimental results showed that band 2 (B2), band 4 (B4), band 6 (B6), band 11 (B11), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) had higher feature importance. The classification results oversampling- based of smote, smote-enn, borderline-smote1, borderline-smote2, and distance-smote were significantly improved, with accuracy 2.84%, 2.66%, 3.94%, 4.18%, 6.96% higher than that those without 26 oversampling, respectively. At the same time, compared with SVM and RF, the overall accuracy of improved GWO-SVM was improved by 0.8% and 1.1%, respectively. Therefore, the GWO-SVM model in this study not only effectively solves the problem of equilibrium of complex crop samples in the classification process, but also effectively improves the overall classification accuracy of crops in complex farming areas, thus providing a feasible alternative for large-scale and complex crop mapping. Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Remote Sensing in Agriculture and Vegetation)
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21 pages, 5061 KiB  
Article
ShuffleCloudNet: A Lightweight Composite Neural Network-Based Method for Cloud Computation in Remote-Sensing Images
by Gang Wang, Zhiying Lu and Ping Wang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5258; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205258 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1356 | Correction
Abstract
The occlusion of cloud layers affects the accurate acquisition of ground object information and causes a large amount of useless remote-sensing data transmission and processing, wasting storage, as well as computing resources. Therefore, in this paper, we designed a lightweight composite neural network [...] Read more.
The occlusion of cloud layers affects the accurate acquisition of ground object information and causes a large amount of useless remote-sensing data transmission and processing, wasting storage, as well as computing resources. Therefore, in this paper, we designed a lightweight composite neural network model to calculate the cloud amount in high-resolution visible remote-sensing images by training the model using thumbnail images and browsing images in remote-sensing images. The training samples were established using paired thumbnail images and browsing images, and the cloud-amount calculation model was obtained by training a proposed composite neural network. The strategy used the thumbnail images for preliminary judgment and the browsing images for accurate calculation, and this combination can quickly determine the cloud amount. The multi-scale confidence fusion module and bag-of-words loss function were redesigned to achieve fast and accurate calculation of cloud-amount data from remote-sensing images. This effectively alleviates the problem of low cloud-amount calculation, thin clouds not being counted as clouds, and that of ice and clouds being confused as in existing methods. Furthermore, a complete dataset of cloud-amount calculation for remote-sensing images, CTI_RSCloud, was constructed for training and testing. The experimental results show that, with less than 13 MB of parameters, the proposed lightweight network model greatly improves the timeliness of cloud-amount calculation, with a runtime is in the millisecond range. In addition, the calculation accuracy is better than the classic lightweight networks and backbone networks of the best cloud-detection models. Full article
(This article belongs to the Topic Advances in Environmental Remote Sensing)
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19 pages, 3495 KiB  
Article
Filtered Convolution for Synthetic Aperture Radar Images Ship Detection
by Luyang Zhang, Haitao Wang, Lingfeng Wang, Chunhong Pan, Chunlei Huo, Qiang Liu and Xinyao Wang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5257; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205257 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1525
Abstract
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image ship detection is currently a research hotspot in the field of national defense science and technology. However, SAR images contain a large amount of coherent speckle noise, which poses significant challenges in the task of ship detection. To [...] Read more.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image ship detection is currently a research hotspot in the field of national defense science and technology. However, SAR images contain a large amount of coherent speckle noise, which poses significant challenges in the task of ship detection. To address this issue, we propose filter convolution, a novel design that replaces the traditional convolution layer and suppresses coherent speckle noise while extracting features. Specifically, the convolution kernel of the filter convolution comes from the input and is generated by two modules: the kernel-generation module and local weight generation module. The kernel-generation module is a dynamic structure that generates dynamic convolution kernels using input image or feature information. The local weight generation module is based on the statistical characteristics of the input images or features and is used to generate local weights. The introduction of local weights allows the extracted features to contain more local characteristic information, which is conducive to ship detection in SAR images. In addition, we proved that the fusion of the proposed kernel-generation module and the local weight module can suppress coherent speckle noise in the SAR image. The experimental results show the excellent performance of our method on a large-scale SAR ship detection dataset-v1.0 (LS-SSDD-v1.0). It also achieved state-of-the-art performance on a high-resolution SAR image dataset (HRSID), which confirmed its applicability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pattern Recognition in Remote Sensing)
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20 pages, 5509 KiB  
Article
Synergistic Retrieval of Temperature and Humidity Profiles from Space-Based and Ground-Based Infrared Sounders Using an Optimal Estimation Method
by Huijie Zhao, Xiaohang Ma, Guorui Jia, Zhiyuan Mi and Huanlin Ji
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5256; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205256 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1281
Abstract
The atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles of the troposphere are generally measured by radiosondes and satellites, which are essential for analyzing and predicting weather. Nevertheless, the insufficient observation frequencies and low detection accuracy of the boundary layer restricts the description of atmospheric state [...] Read more.
The atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles of the troposphere are generally measured by radiosondes and satellites, which are essential for analyzing and predicting weather. Nevertheless, the insufficient observation frequencies and low detection accuracy of the boundary layer restricts the description of atmospheric state changes by the temperature and humidity profiles. Therefore, this work focus on retrieving the temperature and humidity profiles using observations of the FengYun-4 (FY-4) Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Sounder (GIIRS) combined with ground-based infrared spectral observations from the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI), which are more accurate than space-based individual retrieval results and have a wider effective retrieval range than ground-based individual retrieval results. Based on the synergistic observations, which are made by matching the space-based and ground-based data with those of different spatial and temporal resolutions, a synergistic retrieval process is proposed to obtain the temperature and humidity profiles at a high frequency under clear-sky conditions based on the optimal estimation method. In this research, using the line-by-line radiative transfer model (LBLRTM) as the forward model for observing simulations, a retrieval experiment was carried out in Qingdao, China, where an AERI is situated. Taking radiosonde data as a reference for comparing the retrieval results of the temperature and humidity profiles of the troposphere, the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the synergistic retrieval algorithm below 400 hPa is within 2 K for temperature and within 12% for relative humidity. Compared with the GIIRS individual retrieval, the RMSE of temperature and relative humidity for the synergistic method is reduced by 0.13–1.5 K and 2.7–4.4% at 500 hPa, and 0.13–2.1 K and 2.5–7.2% at 900 hPa. Moreover, the forecast index (FI) calculated from the retrieval results shows reasonable consistency with the FIs calculated from the ERA5 reanalysis and from radiosonde data. The synergistic retrieval results have higher temporal resolution than space-based retrieval results and can reflect the changes in the atmospheric state more accurately. Overall, the results demonstrated the promising potential of the synergistic retrieval of temperature and humidity profiles at high accuracy and high temporal resolution under clear-sky conditions from FY-4/GIIRS and AERI. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Infrared Observation of Earth’s Atmosphere II)
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19 pages, 3208 KiB  
Article
Improved Landscape Expansion Index and Its Application to Urban Growth in Urumqi
by Yuhang Tian, Yanmin Shuai, Xianwei Ma, Congying Shao, Tao Liu and Latipa Tuerhanjiang
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5255; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205255 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1874
Abstract
Automatic determination of quantitative parameters describing the pattern of urban expansion is extremely important for urban planning, urban management and civic resource configuration. Though the widely adopted LEI (landscape expansion index) has exhibited the potential to capture the evolution of urban landscape patterns [...] Read more.
Automatic determination of quantitative parameters describing the pattern of urban expansion is extremely important for urban planning, urban management and civic resource configuration. Though the widely adopted LEI (landscape expansion index) has exhibited the potential to capture the evolution of urban landscape patterns using multi-temporal remote sensing data, erroneous determination still exists, especially for patches with special shapes due to the limited consideration of spatial relationships among patches. In this paper, we improve the identification of urban landscape expansion patterns with an enhancement of the topological relationship. We propose MCI (Mean patch Compactness Index) and AWCI (Area-Weighted Compactness Index) in terms of the moment of inertia shape index. The effectiveness of the improved approach in identifying types of expansion patches is theoretically demonstrated with a series of designed experiments. Further, we apply the proposed approaches to the analysis of urban expansion features and dynamics of urban compactness over Urumqi at various 5-year stages using available SUBAD-China data from 1990–2015. The results achieved by the theoretical experiments and case application show our approach effectively suppressed the effects induced by shapes of patches and buffer or envelope box parameters for the accurate identification of patch type. Moreover, the modified MCI and AWCI exhibited an improved potential in capturing the landscape scale compactness of urban dynamics. The investigated 25-year urban expansion of Urumqi is dominated by edge-expansion patches and supplemented by outlying growth, with opposite trends of increasing and decreasing, with a gradual decrease in landscape fragmentation. Our examination using the proposed MCI and AWCI indicates Urumqi was growing more compact in latter 15-year period compared with the first 10 years studied, with the primary urban patches tending to be compacted earlier than the entire urban setting. The historical transformation trajectories based on remote sensing data show a significant construction land gain—from 1.06% in 1990 to 6.96% in 2015—due to 289.16 km2 of recently established construction, accompanied by fast expansion northward, less dynamic expansion southward, and earlier extension in the westward direction than eastward. This work provides a possible means to improve the identification of patch expansion type and further understand the compactness of urban dynamics. Full article
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18 pages, 4143 KiB  
Article
End-to-End Radar HRRP Target Recognition Based on Integrated Denoising and Recognition Network
by Xiaodan Liu, Li Wang and Xueru Bai
Remote Sens. 2022, 14(20), 5254; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14205254 - 20 Oct 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1672
Abstract
For high-resolution range profile (HRRP) radar target recognition in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) scenario, traditional methods frequently perform denoising and recognition separately. In addition, they assume equivalent contributions of the target and the noise regions during feature extraction and fail to capture [...] Read more.
For high-resolution range profile (HRRP) radar target recognition in a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) scenario, traditional methods frequently perform denoising and recognition separately. In addition, they assume equivalent contributions of the target and the noise regions during feature extraction and fail to capture the global dependency. To tackle these issues, an integrated denoising and recognition network, namely, IDR-Net, is proposed. The IDR-Net achieves denoising through the denoising module after adversarial training, and learns the global relationship of the generated HRRP sequence using the attention-augmented temporal encoder. Furthermore, a hybrid loss is proposed to integrate the denoising module and the recognition module, which enables end-to-end training, reduces the information loss during denoising, and boosts the recognition performance. The experimental results on the measured HRRPs of three types of aircraft demonstrate that IDR-Net obtains higher recognition accuracy and more robustness to noise than traditional methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue SAR Images Processing and Analysis)
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