Deep Active Learning for Multi-Label Classification of Remote Sensing Images

The use of deep neural networks (DNNs) has recently attracted great attention in the framework of the multi-label classification (MLC) of remote sensing (RS) images. To optimize the large number of parameters of DNNs a high number of reliable training images annotated with multi-labels is often required. However, the collection of a large training set is time-consuming, complex and costly. To minimize annotation efforts for data-demanding DNNs, in this paper we present several query functions for active learning (AL) in the context of DNNs for the MLC of RS images. Unlike the AL query functions defined for single-label classification or semantic segmentation problems, each query function presented in this paper is based on the evaluation of two criteria: i) multi-label uncertainty; and ii) multi-label diversity. The multi-label uncertainty criterion is associated to the confidence of the DNNs in correctly assigning multi-labels to each image. To assess the multi-label uncertainty, we present and adapt to the MLC problems three strategies: i) learning multi-label loss ordering; ii) measuring temporal discrepancy of multi-label prediction; and iii) measuring magnitude of approximated gradient embedding. The multi-label diversity criterion aims at selecting a set of uncertain images that are as diverse as possible to reduce the redundancy among them. To assess this criterion we exploit a clustering based strategy. We combine each of the above-mentioned uncertainty strategy with the clustering based diversity strategy, resulting in three different query functions. Experimental results obtained on two benchmark archives show that our query functions result in the selection of a highly informative set of samples at each iteration of the AL process in the context of MLC.