MDSNet: a multiscale decoupled supervision network for semantic segmentation of remote sensing images

Recent deep-learning successes have led to a new wave of semantic segmentation in remote sensing (RS) applications. However, most approaches rarely distinguish the role of the body and edge of RS ground objects; thus, our understanding of these semantic parts has been frustrated by the lack of detailed geometry and appearance. Here we present a multiscale decoupled supervision network for RS semantic segmentation. Our proposed framework extends a densely supervised encoder-decoder network with a feature decoupling module that can decouple semantic features with different scales into distinct body and edge components. We further conduct multiscale supervision of the original and decoupled body and edge features to enhance inner consistency and spatial boundaries in remote sensing image (RSI) ground objects, enabling new segmentation designs and semantic components that can learn to perform multiscale geometry and appearance. Our results outperform the previous algorithm and are robust to different datasets. These results demonstrate that decoupled supervision is an effective solution to semantic segmentation tasks of RS images.