학술논문

Automated Discovery of Anomalous Features in Ultralarge Planetary Remote-Sensing Datasets Using Variational Autoencoders
Document Type
Periodical
Source
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observations Remote Sensing Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of. 17:6589-6600 2024
Subject
Geoscience
Signal Processing and Analysis
Power, Energy and Industry Applications
Moon
Reviews
Geology
Remote sensing
Measurement
Training
Surface treatment
Anomaly detection
big data
deep learning
generative models
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
technosignatures
Language
ISSN
1939-1404
2151-1535
Abstract
The NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has returned petabytes of lunar high spatial resolution surface imagery over the past decade, impractical for humans to fully review manually. Here, we develop an automated method using a deep generative visual model that rapidly retrieves scientifically interesting examples of LRO surface imagery representing the first planetary image anomaly detector. We give quantitative experimental evidence that our method preferentially retrieves anomalous samples such as notable geological features and known human landing and spacecraft crash sites. Our method addresses a major capability gap in planetary science and presents a novel way to unlock insights hidden in ever-increasing remote-sensing data archives, with numerous applications to other science domains.