Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder

In this study, we propose a one-branch IncepTAE network to extract local and global hybrid temporal attention simultaneously and congruously for fine-grained satellite image time series (SITS) classification. Transformer and the temporal self-attention mechanism have been the research focus of SITS...

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Main Authors: Zheng Zhang, Weixiong Zhang, Yu Meng, Zhitao Zhao, Ping Tang, Hongyi Li
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-12-01
Series:Remote Sensing
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/23/4579
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author Zheng Zhang
Weixiong Zhang
Yu Meng
Zhitao Zhao
Ping Tang
Hongyi Li
author_facet Zheng Zhang
Weixiong Zhang
Yu Meng
Zhitao Zhao
Ping Tang
Hongyi Li
author_sort Zheng Zhang
collection DOAJ
description In this study, we propose a one-branch IncepTAE network to extract local and global hybrid temporal attention simultaneously and congruously for fine-grained satellite image time series (SITS) classification. Transformer and the temporal self-attention mechanism have been the research focus of SITS classification in recent years. However, its effectiveness seems to diminish in the scenario of fine-grained classification among similar categories, for example, different crop types. Theoretically, most of the existing methods focus on only one type of temporal attention, either global attention or local attention, but actually, both of them are required to achieve fine-grained classification. Even though some works adopt two-branch architecture to extract hybrid attention, they usually lack congruity between different types of temporal attention and hinder the expected discriminating ability. Compared with the existing methods, IncepTAE exhibits multiple methodological novelties. Firstly, we insert average/maximum pooling layers into the calculation of multi-head attention to extract hybrid temporal attention. Secondly, IncepTAE adopts one-branch architecture, which reinforces the interaction and congruity of different temporal information. Thirdly, the proposed IncepTAE is more lightweight due to the use of group convolutions. IncepTAE achieves 95.65% and 97.84% overall accuracy on two challenging datasets, TimeSen2Crop and Ghana. The comparative results with existing <i>state-of-the-art</i> methods demonstrate that IncepTAE is able to achieve superior classification performance and faster inference speed, which is conducive to the large-area application of SITS classification.
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spelling doaj-art-e26e6ca0f0594edbb1d9b4fd8fcba03d2025-08-20T01:55:30ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922024-12-011623457910.3390/rs16234579Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention EncoderZheng Zhang0Weixiong Zhang1Yu Meng2Zhitao Zhao3Ping Tang4Hongyi Li5Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaAerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaAerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaAerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaAerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaAerospace Information Research Institute (AIR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100094, ChinaIn this study, we propose a one-branch IncepTAE network to extract local and global hybrid temporal attention simultaneously and congruously for fine-grained satellite image time series (SITS) classification. Transformer and the temporal self-attention mechanism have been the research focus of SITS classification in recent years. However, its effectiveness seems to diminish in the scenario of fine-grained classification among similar categories, for example, different crop types. Theoretically, most of the existing methods focus on only one type of temporal attention, either global attention or local attention, but actually, both of them are required to achieve fine-grained classification. Even though some works adopt two-branch architecture to extract hybrid attention, they usually lack congruity between different types of temporal attention and hinder the expected discriminating ability. Compared with the existing methods, IncepTAE exhibits multiple methodological novelties. Firstly, we insert average/maximum pooling layers into the calculation of multi-head attention to extract hybrid temporal attention. Secondly, IncepTAE adopts one-branch architecture, which reinforces the interaction and congruity of different temporal information. Thirdly, the proposed IncepTAE is more lightweight due to the use of group convolutions. IncepTAE achieves 95.65% and 97.84% overall accuracy on two challenging datasets, TimeSen2Crop and Ghana. The comparative results with existing <i>state-of-the-art</i> methods demonstrate that IncepTAE is able to achieve superior classification performance and faster inference speed, which is conducive to the large-area application of SITS classification.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/23/4579self-attention mechanismsatellite image time seriesclassificationinception nethybrid attentiontemporal attention encoder
spellingShingle Zheng Zhang
Weixiong Zhang
Yu Meng
Zhitao Zhao
Ping Tang
Hongyi Li
Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
Remote Sensing
self-attention mechanism
satellite image time series
classification
inception net
hybrid attention
temporal attention encoder
title Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
title_full Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
title_fullStr Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
title_full_unstemmed Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
title_short Satellite Image Time-Series Classification with Inception-Enhanced Temporal Attention Encoder
title_sort satellite image time series classification with inception enhanced temporal attention encoder
topic self-attention mechanism
satellite image time series
classification
inception net
hybrid attention
temporal attention encoder
url https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/16/23/4579
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AT weixiongzhang satelliteimagetimeseriesclassificationwithinceptionenhancedtemporalattentionencoder
AT yumeng satelliteimagetimeseriesclassificationwithinceptionenhancedtemporalattentionencoder
AT zhitaozhao satelliteimagetimeseriesclassificationwithinceptionenhancedtemporalattentionencoder
AT pingtang satelliteimagetimeseriesclassificationwithinceptionenhancedtemporalattentionencoder
AT hongyili satelliteimagetimeseriesclassificationwithinceptionenhancedtemporalattentionencoder