DEEP LEARNING FOR VESSEL DETECTION AND IDENTIFICATION FROM SPACEBORNE OPTICAL IMAGERY
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. We present a deep learning-based vessel detection and (re-)identification approach from spaceborne optical images. We introduce these two components as part of a maritime surveillance from space pipeline and present experimental results on challenging real-world maritime datasets derived from WorldView imagery. First, we developed a vessel detection model based on RetinaNet achieving a performance of 0.795 F1-score on a challenging multi-scale dataset. We then collected a large-scale dataset for vessel identification by applying the detection model on 200+ optical images, detecting the vessels therein and assigning them an identity via an Automatic Identification System association framework. A vessel re-identification model based on Twin neural networks has then been trained on this dataset featuring 2500+ unique vessels with multiple repeated occurrences across different acquisitions. The model allows to naturally establish similarities between vessel images. It returns a relevant ranking of candidate vessels from a database when provided an input image for a specific vessel the user might be interested in, with top-1 and top-10 accuracies of 38.7% and 76.5%, respectively. This study demonstrates the potential offered by the latest advances in deep learning and computer vision when applied to optical remote sensing imagery in a maritime context, opening new opportunities for automated vessel monitoring and tracking capabilities from space.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".