Technical solution discussion for key challenges of operational convolutional neural network-based building-damage assessment from satellite imagery: Perspective from benchmark XBD dataset

Earth Observation satellite imaging helps building diagnosis during a disaster. Several models are put forward on the xBD dataset, which can be divided into two levels: the building level and the pixel level. Models from two levels evolve into several versions that will be reviewed in this paper. There are four key challenges hindering researchers from moving forward on this task, and this paper tries to give technical solutions. First, metrics on different levels could not be compared directly. We put forward a fairer metric and give a method to convert between metrics of two levels. Secondly, drone images may be another important source, but drone data may have only a post-disaster image. This paper shows and compares methods of directly detecting and generating. Thirdly, the class imbalance is a typical feature of the xBD dataset and leads to a bad F1 score for minor damage and major damage. This paper provides four specific data resampling strategies, which are Main-Label Over-Sampling (MLOS), Discrimination After Cropping (DAC), Dilation of Area with Minority (DAM) and Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique (SMOTE), as well as cost-sensitive re-weighting schemes. Fourthly, faster prediction meets the need for a real-time situation. This paper recommends three specific methods, feature-map subtraction, parameter sharing, and knowledge distillation. Finally, we developed our AI-driven Damage Diagnose Platform (ADDP). This paper introduces the structure of ADDP and technical details. Customized settings, interface preview, and upload and download satellite images are major services our platform provides.