The real-time performance of ship detection is an important index in the marine remote sensing detection task. Due to the computing resources on the satellite being limited by the solar array size and the radiation-resistant electronic components, information extraction tasks are usually implemented after the image is transmitted to the ground. However, in recent years, the one-stage based target detector such as the You Only Look Once Version 5 (YOLOv5) deep learning framework shows powerful performance while being lightweight, and it provides an implementation scheme for on-orbit reasoning to shorten the time delay of ship detention. Optimizing the lightweight model has important research significance for SAR image onboard processing. In this paper, we studied the fusion problem of two lightweight models which are the Coordinate Attention (CA) mechanism module and the YOLOv5 detector. We propose a novel lightweight end-to-end object detection framework fused with a CA module in the backbone of a suitable position: YOLO Coordinate Attention SAR Ship (YOLO-CASS), for the SAR ship target detection task. The experimental results on the SSDD synthetic aperture radar (SAR) remote sensing imagery indicate that our method shows significant gains in both efficiency and performance, and it has the potential to be developed into onboard processing in the SAR satellite platform. The techniques we explored provide a solution to improve the performance of the lightweight deep learning-based object detection framework.

In the realm of few-shot classification learning, the judicious application of data augmentation methods has a significantly positive impact on classification performance. In the context of few-shot classification tasks for remote sensing images, the augmentation of features and the efficient utilization of limited features are of paramount importance. To address the performance degradation caused by challenges such as high interclass overlap and large intraclass variance in remote sensing image features, we present a data augmentation-based classification optimization method for few-shot remote sensing image scene classification. First, we construct a distortion magnitude space using different types of features, and we perform distortion adjustments on the support set samples while introducing an optimal search for the distortion magnitude (ODS) method. Then, the augmented support set offers a wide array of feature distortions in terms of types and degrees, significantly enhancing the generalization of intrasample features. Subsequently, we devise a dual-path classification (DC) decision strategy, effectively leveraging the discriminative information provided by the postdistortion features to further reduce the likelihood of classification errors. Finally, we evaluate the proposed method using a widely used remote sensing dataset. Our experimental results demonstrate that our approach outperforms benchmark methods, achieving improved classification accuracy.

Super-resolution (SR) for satellite remote sensing images has been recognized as crucial and has found widespread applications across various scenarios. Previous SR methods were usually built upon Convolutional Neural Networks and Transformers, which suffer from either limited receptive fields or a lack of prior assumptions. To address these issues, we propose ESatSR, a novel SR method based on state space models. We utilize the 2D Selective Scan to obtain an enhanced capability in modeling long-range dependencies, which contributes to a wide receptive field. A Spatial Context Interaction Module (SCIM) and an Enhanced Image Reconstruction Module (EIRM) are introduced to combine image-related prior knowledge into our model, therefore guiding the process of feature extraction and reconstruction. Tailored for remote sensing images, the interaction of multi-scale spatial context and image features is leveraged to enhance the network’s capability in capturing features of small targets. Comprehensive experiments show that ESatSR demonstrates state-of-the-art performance on both OLI2MSI and RSSCN7 datasets, with the highest PSNRs of 42.11 dB and 31.42 dB, respectively. Extensive ablation studies illustrate the effectiveness of our module design.

This paper studies the lightweight deep learning object detection algorithm to detect ship targets in SAR images that can be deployed on-orbit and accessed in the space-based IoT. Traditionally, remote sensing data must be transferred to the ground for processing. With the vigorous development of the commercial aerospace industry, computing, and high-speed laser inter-satellite link technologies, the interconnection of everything in the intelligent world has become an irreversible trend. Satellite remote sensing has entered the era of a big data link with IoT. On-orbit interpretation gives remote sensing images expanse application space. However, implementing on-orbit high-performance computing (HPC) is difficult; it is limited by the power and computer resource consumption of the satellite platform. Facing this challenge, building a processing algorithm with less computational complexity, less parameter quantity, high precision, and low computational power consumption is a key issue. In this paper, we propose a lightweight end-to-end SAR ship detector fused with the vision transformer encoder: YOLO−ViTSS. The experiment shows that YOLO−ViTSS has lightweight features, the model size is only 1.31 MB; it has anti-noise capability is suitable for processing SAR remote sensing images with native noise, and it also has high performance and low training energy consumption with 96.6 mAP on the SSDD dataset. These characteristics make YOLO−ViTSS suitable for porting to satellites for on-orbit processing and online learning. Furthermore, the ideas proposed in this paper help to build a cleaner and a more efficient new paradigm for remote sensing image interpretation. Migrating HPC tasks performed on the ground to on-orbit satellites and using solar energy to complete computing tasks is a more environmentally friendly option. This environmental advantage will gradually increase with the current construction of large-scale satellite constellations. The scheme proposed in this paper helps to build a novel real-time, eco-friendly, and sustainable SAR image interpretation mode.