Consistency Self-Training Semi-Supervised Method for Road Extraction from Remote Sensing Images

Road extraction techniques based on remote sensing image have significantly advanced. Currently, fully supervised road segmentation neural networks based on remote sensing images require a significant number of densely labeled road samples, limiting their applicability in large-scale scenarios. Consequently, semi-supervised methods that utilize fewer labeled data have gained increasing attention. However, the imbalance between a small quantity of labeled data and a large volume of unlabeled data leads to local detail errors and overall cognitive mistakes in semi-supervised road extraction. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a novel consistency self-training semi-supervised method (CSSnet), which effectively learns from a limited number of labeled data samples and a large amount of unlabeled data. This method integrates self-training semi-supervised segmentation with semi-supervised classification. The semi-supervised segmentation component relies on an enhanced generative adversarial network for semantic segmentation, which significantly reduces local detail errors. The semi-supervised classification component relies on an upgraded mean-teacher network to handle overall cognitive errors. Our method exhibits excellent performance with a modest amount of labeled data. This study was validated on three separate road datasets comprising high-resolution remote sensing satellite images and UAV photographs. Experimental findings showed that our method consistently outperformed state-of-the-art semi-supervised methods and several classic fully supervised methods.