Enhanced Military Airport Facility Detection Using EfficientDet for Satellite-Based Imagery

Satellite technology has made data from Remote Sensing Images (RSIs) easily available, leading to diverse applications like crop health monitoring and urban planning. Given their importance as a strategic asset, military airports are in the crosshairs during warfare. Airport facilities such as runways, aprons, taxiways and hangars are identified types of infrastructure essential for conducting military operations, therefore a strong emphasis is put on development of detection methodologies to these facilities within RSIs. This paper studies the benefits of Jetson Nano in combining a method of model fusion, Enhanced Det with Google Coral hardware for better performance in facility detection tasks. Advanced object detection methods are being integrated with dedicated hardware to enhance the efficiency and accuracy in terms of building identification, thereby validating the product value proposition for reconnaissance (new market) and also military defence operations. More EfficientDet utilization with satellite imagery improves the detection of military airport facilities such as runways and hangars, therefore enhancing security measures by identifying infrastructure fast and accurately. This increases surveillance alerts and supports for threat assessment, reconnaissance, and operational planning for military defense and security. This project recognises military airports in Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka & Afghanistan and has 88% runway accuracy and 82% hangar accuracy using the EfficientDet model that can be deployed on Jetson Nano to effectively detect military airport facilities.