Identifying Critical Infrastructure in Imagery Data Using Explainable Convolutional Neural Networks

To date, no method utilizing satellite imagery exists for detailing the locations and functions of critical infrastructure across the United States, making response to natural disasters and other events challenging due to complex infrastructural interdependencies. This paper presents a repeatable, transferable, and explainable method for critical infrastructure analysis and implementation of a robust model for critical infrastructure detection in satellite imagery. This model consists of a DenseNet-161 convolutional neural network, pretrained with the ImageNet database. The model was provided additional training with a custom dataset, containing nine infrastructure classes. The resultant analysis achieved an overall accuracy of 90%, with the highest accuracy for airports (97%), hydroelectric dams (96%), solar farms (94%), substations (91%), potable water tanks (93%), and hospitals (93%). Critical infrastructure types with relatively low accuracy are likely influenced by data commonality between similar infrastructure components for petroleum terminals (86%), water treatment plants (78%), and natural gas generation (78%). Local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) was integrated into the overall modeling pipeline to establish trust for users in critical infrastructure applications. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of a convolutional neural network approach for critical infrastructure identification, with higher than 90% accuracy in identifying six of the critical infrastructure facility types.