High-Precision Inversion of Shallow Bathymetry under Complex Hydrographic Conditions Using VGG19—A Case Study of the Taiwan Banks

• Published in: Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 15; no. 5; p. 1257
• Main Authors: Cui, Jiaxin, Luo, Xiaowen, Wu, Ziyin, Zhou, Jieqiong, Wan, Hongyang, Chen, Xiaolun, Qin, Xiaoming
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2023
• Subjects: Accuracy; Algorithms; Artificial intelligence; Back propagation; Bathymeters; Bathymetry; Deep learning; Inversion; Machine learning; Marine environment; Mean square errors; Measurement techniques; Methods; multibeam sonar data; Neural networks; Propagation; Radar imaging; Remote sensing; Root-mean-square errors; Satellites; shallow bathymetry inversion; Shallow water; Simulation; Synthetic aperture radar; synthetic aperture radar image data; Topography; Underwater exploration; VGG model; China; Taiwan
• DOI: 10.3390/rs15051257
• ISSN: 2072-4292

Shallow bathymetry is important for ocean exploration, and the development of high-precision bathymetry inversion methods, especially for shallow waters with poor quality, is a major research aim. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image data benefit from a wide coverage, high measurement density, rapidity, and low consumption but are limited by low accuracy. Alternatively, multibeam data have low coverage and are difficult to obtain but have a high measurement accuracy. In this paper, taking advantage of the complementary properties, we use SAR image data as the content map and multibeam images as the migrated style map, applying the VGG19 neural network (optimizing the loss function formula) for bathymetric inversion. The model was universal and highly accurate for bathymetric inversion of shallow marine areas, such as turbid water in Taiwan. There was a strong correlation between bathymetric inversion data and measured data (R2 = 0.8822; RMSE = 1.86 m). The relative error was refined by 9.22% over those of previous studies. Values for different bathymetric regions were extremely correlated in the region of 20–40 m. The newly developed approach is highly accurate over 20 m in the open ocean, providing an efficient, precise shallow bathymetry inversion method for complex hydrographic conditions.