Unsupervised Multiple-Change Detection in VHR Multisensor Images Via Deep-Learning Based Adaptation

Abstract

Change Detection (CD) using multitemporal satellite images is an important application of remote sensing. In this work, we propose a Convolutional-Neural-Network (CNN) based unsupervised multiple-change detection approach that simultaneously accounts for the high spatial correlation among pixels in Very High spatial Resolution (VHR) images and the differences in multisensor images. We accomplish this by learning in an unsupervised way a transcoding between multisensor multitemporal data by exploiting a cycle-consistent Generative Adversarial Network (CycleGAN) that consists of two generator CNN networks. After unsupervised training, one generator of the CycleGAN is used to mitigate multisensor differences, while the other is used as a feature extractor that enables the computation of multitemporal deep features. These features are then compared pixelwise to generate a change detection map. Changed pixels are then further analyzed based on multitemporal deep features for identifying different kind of changes (multiple-change detection). Results obtained on multisensor multitemporal dataset consisting of Quickbird and Pleiades images confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach.