Exploiting Time-Series Image-to-Image Translation to Expand the Range of Wildlife Habitat Analysis

Authors

  • Ruobing Zheng Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Ze Luo Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Baoping Yan Chinese Academy of Sciences

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.3301825

Abstract

Characterizing wildlife habitat is one of the main topics in animal ecology. Locational data obtained from radio tracking and field observation are widely used in habitat analysis. However, such sampling methods are costly and laborious, and insufficient relocations often prevent scientists from conducting large-range and long-term research. In this paper, we innovatively exploit the image-to-image translation technology to expand the range of wildlife habitat analysis. We proposed a novel approach for implementing time-series imageto-image translation via metric embedding. A siamese neural network is used to learn the Euclidean temporal embedding from the image space. This embedding produces temporal vectors which bring time information into the adversarial network. The well-trained framework could effectively map the probabilistic habitat models from remote sensing imagery, helping scientists get rid of the persistent dependence on animal relocations. We illustrate our approach in a real-world application for mapping the habitats of Bar-headed Geese at Qinghai Lake breeding ground. We compare our model against several baselines and achieve promising results.

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Published

2019-07-17

How to Cite

Zheng, R., Luo, Z., & Yan, B. (2019). Exploiting Time-Series Image-to-Image Translation to Expand the Range of Wildlife Habitat Analysis. Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 33(01), 825-832. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v33i01.3301825

Issue

Section

AAAI Special Technical Track: AI for Social Impact