US 2026/0289738 A1 · DIFFUSION BRIDGE FRAMEWORK FOR CLOUD REMOVAL IN SATELLITE IMAGERY

Abstract

A system and method for generating a cloud-free optical satellite image from a cloudy optical satellite image using a diffusion bridge (DB) framework that includes iteratively applying a reverse diffusion bridge process, such that each iteration progressively refines the input image by reducing cloud-induced noise while preserving structural and spectral details. The diffusion bridge framework models a deterministic transition from the cloudy image distribution to the target cloud-free image distribution. The system may further incorporate Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery to guide the structural recovery process, using a two-branch multimodal architecture comprising an optical image restoration branch and a SAR feature extraction branch. The branches are interconnected through SAR Fusion Blocks (SFBlocks), which employ cross-attention mechanisms to align and merge structural information from SAR images with spectral details from optical images. This multimodal diffusion bridge framework improves cloud removal accuracy, reduces artifacts, and maintains computational efficiency.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for generating a cloud-free optical satellite image from a cloudy optical satellite image, wherein the method uses a processor coupled with stored instructions implementing the method, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor carry out steps of the method, comprising:

receiving the cloudy optical satellite image;
iteratively applying a reverse diffusion bridge process to the cloudy optical satellite image over a sequence of one or more time steps to produce the cloud-free optical satellite image, wherein, for each iteration at an intermediate time step, the reverse diffusion bridge process comprises:
applying a trained diffusion bridge model to a current input optical image generated by a previous iteration of the reverse diffusion bridge process to produce an intermediate optical image with reduced cloud-induced noise;
and
combining the current input optical image with the intermediate optical image to generate a refined optical image as input for a subsequent iteration;
and
outputting the cloud-free optical satellite image generated by the reverse diffusion bridge process.

4 more elements

A system for generating a cloud-free optical satellite image from a cloudy optical satellite image, the system comprising:

a processor;
and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive a cloudy optical satellite image;
iteratively apply a reverse diffusion bridge process to the cloudy optical satellite image over a sequence of one or more time steps to generate a cloud-free optical satellite image, wherein, for each iteration at an intermediate time step, the reverse diffusion bridge process comprises:
applying a trained diffusion bridge model to a current input optical image generated by a previous iteration of the reverse diffusion bridge process to produce an intermediate optical image with reduced cloud-induced noise;
and
combining the current input optical image with the intermediate optical image to generate a refined optical image as input for a subsequent iteration;
and
output the cloud-free optical satellite image generated by the reverse diffusion bridge process.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Diffusion bridge framework for cloud removal in satellite imagery

Life of this patent

Diffusion bridge framework for cloud removal in satellite imagery

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20