Identifying Cotton Fields from Remote Sensing Images Using Multiple Deep Learning Networks

Remote sensing imageries processed through empirical and deterministic approaches help predict multiple agronomic traits throughout the growing season. Accurate identification of cotton crop from remotely sensed imageries is a significant task in precision agriculture. This study aims to utilize a deep learning-based framework for cotton crop field identification with Gaofen-1 (GF-1) high-resolution (16 m) imageries in Wei-Ku region, China. An optimized model for the pixel-wise multidimensional densely connected convolutional neural network (DenseNet) was used. Four widely-used classic convolutional neural networks (CNNs), including ResNet, VGG, SegNet, and DeepLab v3+, were also used for accuracy assessment. The results infer that DenseNet can identify cotton crop features within a relatively shorter time about 5 h for training convergence. The model performance was examined by multiple indicators (P, F1, R, and mIou) produced through the confusion matrix, and the derived cotton fields were then visualized. The DenseNet model has illustrated considerable improvements in comparison with the preceding mainstream models. The results showed that the retrieval precision was 0.948, F1 score was 0.953, and mIou was 0.911. Furthermore, its performance is relatively better in discriminating cotton crop fields’ fine structures when clouds, mountain shadows, and urban built up.