Comparison of Deep Learning-based Unsupervised Domain Adaptation Models for Crop Classification

The unsupervised domain adaptation can solve the impractical issue of repeatedly collecting high-quality training data every year for annual crop classification. This study evaluates the applicability of deep learning-based unsupervised domain adaptation models for crop classification. Three unsupervised domain adaptation models including a deep adaptation network (DAN), a deep reconstruction classification network, and a domain adversarial neural network (DANN) are quantitatively compared via a crop classification experiment using unmanned aerial vehicle images in Hapcheon-gun and Changnyeong-gun, the major garlic and onion cultivation areas in Korea. As source baseline and target baseline models, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are additionally applied to evaluate the classification performance of the unsupervised domain adaptation models. The three unsupervised domain adaptation models outperformed the source baseline CNN, but the different classification performances were observed depending on the degree of inconsistency between data distributions in source and target images. The classification accuracy of DAN was higher than that of the other two models when the inconsistency between source and target images was low, whereas DANN has the best classification performance when the inconsistency between source and target images was high. Therefore, the extent to which data distributions of the source and target images match should be considered to select the best unsupervised domain adaptation model to generate reliable classification results.