The rapid processing, analysis, and mining of remote sensing big data using intelligent interpretation technology on remote sensing cloud computing platforms (RS-CCPs) have emerged as a new trend. However, existing RS-CCPs primarily focus on optimizing data storage and intelligent computing for common visual representation, overlooking key characteristics of remote sensing data such as large image size, large-scale change, multiple data channels, and geographic knowledge embedding. This oversight hinders computational efficiency and accuracy in remote sensing image interpretation. To address this, we have developed the LuoJia-AI platform, comprising the LuoJiaSET standard large-scale sample database and the dedicated deep learning framework, LuoJiaNET. This platform achieves state-of-the-art performance on five crucial remote sensing interpretation tasks: scene classification, object detection, land-use classification, change detection, and multi-view 3D reconstruction. LuoJia-AI bridges the gap between the sample database and the deep learning framework, exhibiting significant potential for high-precision remote sensing mapping applications.

Data management and analysis are challenging with big Earth observation (EO) data. Expanding upon the rising promises of data cubes for analysis-ready big EO data, we propose a new geospatial infrastructure layered over a data cube to facilitate big EO data management and analysis. Compared to previous work on data cubes, the proposed infrastructure, GeoCube, extends the capacity of data cubes to multi-source big vector and raster data. GeoCube is developed in terms of three major efforts: formalize cube dimensions for multi-source geospatial data, process geospatial data query along these dimensions, and organize cube data for high-performance geoprocessing. This strategy improves EO data cube management and keeps connections with the business intelligence cube, which provides supplementary information for EO data cube processing. The paper highlights the major efforts and key research contributions to online analytical processing for dimension formalization, distributed cube objects for tiles, and artificial intelligence enabled prediction of computational intensity for data cube processing. Case studies with data from Landsat, Gaofen, and OpenStreetMap demonstrate the capabilities and applicability of the proposed infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning (AI/ML), in particular Deep Learning (DL), is reorienting and transforming Earth Observation (EO). A consistent data model for delivery of training data will support the FAIR data principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) and enable Web-based use of training data in a spatial data infrastructure (SDI). Existing training datasets, including open source benchmark datasets, are usually packaged into public or personal repositories and lack discoverability and accessibility. Moreover, there is no unified method to describe the training data. Here we propose a training data model for AI in EO to allow documentation, storage, and sharing of geospatial training data in a distributed infrastructure. We present design rationales, information models, and an encoding method. Several scenarios illustrate the intended uses and benefits for EO DL applications in an open Web environment. The relationship with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards is also discussed, as is the impact on an AI-ready SDI.

At the end of 2019, the very first COVID-19 coronavirus infection was reported and then it spread across the world just like wildfires. From late January to March 2020, most cities and villages in China were locked down, and consequently, human activities decreased dramatically. This letter presents an “offline learning and online inference” approach to explore the variation of PM2.5 pollution during this period. In the experiments, a deep regression model was trained to establish the complex relationship between remote sensing data andin situPM2.5 observations, and then the spatially continuous monthly PM2.5 distribution map was simulated using the Google Earth Engine platform. The results reveal that the COVID-19 lockdown truly decreased the PM2.5 pollution with certain hysteresis and the fine particle pollution begins to increase when advancing resumption of work and production gradually.

Due to the tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolutions of remote sensing images, spatiotemporal fusion models were proposed to synthesize the high spatiotemporal image series. Currently, spatiotemporal fusion models usually employ one coarse-resolution image acquired on a prediction date and at least another pair of coarse–fine resolution images close to the prediction time as references to derive the fine-resolution image on the prediction date. After years of development, the model accuracy has gained a certain improvement, but nearly, all the models require at least three image inputs and rigid time constraints must be applied to the references to guarantee the fusion accuracy. However, it is not always that easy to collect adequate data pairs for fine-resolution image series simulation in practice because of the bad weather condition or the time inconsistency between the coarse–fine resolution data sources, which causes some difficulties in the actual application. This article introduces the conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) and switchable normalization technique into the spatiotemporal fusion problem and proposes a flexible deep network named the GAN-based SpatioTemporal Fusion Model (GAN-STFM) to reduce the number of model inputs and broke the time restriction on reference image selection. The GAN-STFM just needs a coarse-resolution image on the prediction date and another fine-resolution reference image at an arbitrary time in the same area for model inputs. As far as we know, this is the first spatiotemporal fusion model that requires only two images as model inputs and puts no restriction on the acquisition time of references. Even so, the GAN-STFM performs on par or better than other classical fusion models in the experiments. With this improvement, the data preparation for spatiotemporal fusion tends to be much easier than before, showing a promising perspective for practical applications.

Significant progress has been made in spatiotemporal fusion for remote sensing images; however, most models require inputs to be free of clouds and without missing data, considerably confining their applications in practice. Due to recent advances in deep learning technologies, powerful modeling capabilities could be leveraged to bring potential solutions to this problem. This article proposes a novel architecture named the robust spatiotemporal fusion network (RSFN) based on the generative adversarial network and attention mechanism with dual temporal references to automatically handle input noise. The RSFN only needs one coarse-resolution image on the prediction date and two referential fine-resolution images before and after the prediction date as model inputs. Most notably, there is no special restriction attached on the data quality of referential images. The comparison with other models demonstrates the effectiveness of the RSFN model quantitatively and visually in four study areas using MODIS and Landsat images. Two main conclusions can draw from the experiments. First, the input data noise hardly affects the prediction results of the RSFN, and the RSFN can gain a comparable or even higher accuracy; conversely, the other methods only show limited resistance to input noise. Second, the RSFN with cloud-contaminated references outperforms the other models with cloud-free references after data filtering in the same study area during the same period. The satellite data quality usually varies significantly; the model robustness and fault tolerance are considered critical for actual applications. The RSFN is a simple end-to-end deep model with high accuracy and fault tolerance designed for spatiotemporal fusion with imperfect data inputs, showing promising prospects in practical applications.

The big data is characterized by challenges on variety, volumes, velocity etc. Recent advocate of data cube in the Earth observation (EO) domain has shown great promise to provide analysis ready data for remote sensing applications. It is possible to develop a geospatial big data infrastructure layered on the data cube by incorporating a uniform analysis-ready multidimensional data structure and exploiting its usage in connecting EO data analytics and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing), thus enabling a multi-source geospatial data cube accommodating both EO and location-based social-economic data. The creation of such a geospatial data cube, named GeoCube, needs special attentions from geospatial perspective including the formalization of spatio-temporal dimensions, tiling along these dimensions for high performance geoprocessing, and processing of geospatial/EO queries against these dimensions. This will help develop a new framework for big geospatial data analytics while at the time keeping connections to the data cube in the business intelligence domain. The paper will highlight these issues and identify a research agenda for developing such a geospatial data cube.

Semantic location-based services (LBS) aims to provide intelligent LBS that can find and integrate various information to better meet user requirements in location-aware context. This paper argues that traditional approaches for semantic GIServices in the Cyberinfrastructure context could be extended into the LBS. After highlighting the distinguished features of semantic LBS, i.e. context semantics and location semantics, it suggests a common semantic framework that can accommodate semantics in both LBS and GIServices. A semantic-aware LBS architecture is proposed, which supports the context-aware discovery, access, composition, and use of Web information. A case study illustrates the applicability of the approach.

In the Big Data era, scientific and social data can complement each other for enhanced data analysis and scientific discovery. In the geospatial domain, Sensor Web technologies can provide real-time or near real-time geospatial data to support timely decision-making. Scientific workflows have been identified as a key approach to support Big Data analytics for scientists. In the human-as-sensor aspect, the social content, as a special kind of sensor data, could be mined and fused in a Sensor Event Service (SES), allowing social data to be used inside a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). This paper investigates an infrastructural approach on how social and scientific data could work together in an interoperable service environment. Sensor Web and geoprocessing services technologies are leveraged together for timely decision support from social and sensor data. A use case on haze-related data mining and analysis illustrates the applicability of the approach.