Application of Artificial Intelligence for Crater Detection in Areas Affected by Military Actions

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2713.113.14

Keywords:

artificial intelligence, satellite monitoring, crater contour detection, computer vision, hyperparameter optimization, land reclamation

Abstract

Background. Significant damage to land resources resulting from military actions has necessitated the implementation of modern approaches to assess land degradation and determine reclamation needs. Within the framework of this study, methods for applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are proposed for the rapid monitoring of damaged territories and calculating the volume of resources required for their restoration.

Methods. Processing of satellite and aerial imagery was carried out using computer vision algorithms, specifically YOLOv5 and Faster R-CNN convolutional neural networks, as well as contour detection methods and the Hough transform. To enhance data processing efficiency, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure was utilized, and hyperparameter optimization was implemented using the Optuna library.

Results. The research results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The use of models adapted from the PyCDA project (originally designed for planetary crater detection) enabled the high-precision identification of craters caused by explosions. Heuristic contour detection algorithms were developed to improve analytical accuracy, and methodologies for estimating reclamation volumes based on geometric models and satellite observations were implemented. Optimized algorithmic parameters ensured increased performance of the automated data processing system.

Conclusions. The practical significance of the study is validated by the creation of a comprehensive toolkit for assessing the state of degraded lands and formulating restoration strategies. The proposed solutions are recommended for use by government agencies, environmental services, and scientific organizations involved in mitigating the consequences of land degradation and planning reclamation activities.

References

Akiba, T., Sano, S., Yanase, T., Ohta, T., & Koyama, M. (2019). Optuna: A next-generation hyperparameter optimization framework. Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining, 2623–2631. https://doi.org/10.1145/3292500.3330701

Ballard, D. H. (1981). Generalizing the Hough transform to detect arbitrary shapes. Pattern Recognition, 13(2), 111–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-3203(81)90009-1

Benedix, G. K., Norman, C. J., Bland, P. A., Towner, M. C., Paxman, J., & Tan, T. (2018). Automated detection of Martian craters using a convolutional neural network. 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2018/pdf/2202.pdf

Canny, J. (1986). A computational approach to edge detection. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 8(6), 679–698. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.1986.4767851

Duda, R. O., & Hart, P. E. (1972). Use of the Hough transformation to detect lines and curves in pictures. Communications of the ACM, 15(1), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/361237.361242

Fedyshyn, T. I. (2024). Metrological support of the cyber-physical system for soil monitoring [Doctoral dissertation, Lviv Polytechnic National University] [in Ukrainian]. https://lpnu.ua/sites/default/files/2024/radaphd/27655/disertaciyafedishintetyaniigorivni.pdf

Ghorbanzadeh, O., Meena, S. R., Blaschke, T., & Aryal, J. (2019). UAV-based slope failure detection using deep-learning convolutional neural networks. Remote Sensing, 11(17), 2046. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11172046

Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep learning. MIT Press.

Institute for Soil Protection of Ukraine. (2024). Report on scientific activity for 2024. ISPU [in Ukrainian]. https://www.iogu.gov.ua/link/press_center/magazines/magazine_2024.html

Jocher, G., Chaurasia, A., & Qiu, J. (2023). Ultralytics YOLOv8. GitHub. https://github.com/ultralytics/ultralytics

Jocher, G., et al. (2020). YOLOv5 Repository Documentation. GitHub. https://github.com/ultralytics/yolov5

Kussul, N., Drozd, S., Yailymova, H., Shelestov, A., Lemoine, G., & Deininger, K. (2023). Assessing damage to agricultural fields from military actions in Ukraine: An integrated approach using statistical indicators and machine learning. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, 31, 100976. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2023.100976

Kussul, N., Shelestov, A., Yailymov, B., Yailymova, H., Lemoine, G., & Deininger, K. (2025). Assessment of war-induced agricultural land use changes in Ukraine using machine learning applied to Sentinel satellite data. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 140, 104551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2025.104551

Lysenko, V., Bolbot, I., Martynenko, O., Lendel, T., & Nakonechna, K. (2022). Software of a mobile robot for phytomonitoring. Machinery and Energetics, 13(1), 5–10. https://doi.org/10.31548/machenergy2022.01.005

Lysenko, V., Bolbot, I., Romasevych, Y., Loveykin, V., & Voytiuk, V. (2018). Algorithms of robotic electrotechnical complex control in agricultural production. Control Systems: Theory and Applications, 271–289.

Modern trends in the development of geodesy, land management and environmental management (2024). Proceedings of the International Scientific-Practical Conference (June 13–14, 2024). Odesa: ONAFT. https://osau.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Zbirnyk-tez-konf-13-14.06.2024.pdf [in Ukrainian].

Modern trends in the development of geodesy, land management and environmental management (2024). Materials of the International Scientific-Practical Conference (June 13–14, 2024). Odesa: ONAFT. https://osau.edu.ua/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Zbirnyk-tez-konf-13-14.06.2024.pdf

Mueller, H., Gonzalez, L., & Abou-Chakra, K. (2021). Detecting war damage using deep learning and spatio-temporal satellite image analysis. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 90, 101709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2021.101709

Redmon, J., Divvala, S., Girshick, R., & Farhadi, A. (2016). You only look once: Unified, real-time object detection. Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 779–788. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.91

Shapiro, L. G., & Stockman, G. C. (2001). Computer vision. Prentice Hall.

Shelestov, A., Drozd, S., Mikava, P., Barabash, I., & Yailymova, H. (2023). War damage detection based on satellite data. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Applied Innovations in IT (ICAIIT 2023), 89–95. https://doi.org/10.25673/101923

Shen, L., et al. (2021). Efficient hyperparameter optimization techniques in machine learning. Neural Computing and Applications, 33(12), 7381–7396. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-020-05501-z

Silburt, A., Ali-Dib, M., Zhu, C., Jackson, A., Valencia, D., Kissin, Y., & Wu, K. (2019). Lunar crater identification via deep learning. Icarus, 317, 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2018.06.022

Sticher, V., Wegner, J. D., & Pfeifle, B. (2023). Toward the remote monitoring of armed conflicts. PNAS Nexus, 2(6), pgad181. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad181

Szeliski, R. (2022). Computer vision: Algorithms and applications (2nd ed.). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34372-9

Tiede, D., Krafft, P., Füreder, P., & Lang, S. (2016). Stratified template matching to support refugee camp analysis in OBIA workflows. Remote Sensing, 9(4), 326. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9040326

Tonkha, O., Bolbot, I., Kravchenko, V., Rudenskyi, R., Saiapin, S., & Tsyhanov, O. (2025). Technologies of reclamation of damaged lands using AI and robotic devices: Scientific and methodological recommendations. National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

Van Etten, A., Lindenbaum, D., & Bacastow, T. M. (2018). SpaceNet: A remote sensing dataset and challenge series. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1807.01232

Wang, C. Y., et al. (2020). YOLOv5: Improved object detection architecture. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2004.10934

Weir, D., & McQuillan, D. (2019). Mapping military impacts on the environment: A GIS-based approach to conflict pollution. Journal of Political Ecology, 26(1), 697–718. https://doi.org/10.2458/v26i1.23169

Wu, J., Gan, W., Chao, H. C., & Yu, P. S. (2024). Geospatial big data: Survey and challenges. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2404.18428

Yailymova, H., Kussul, N., Shelestov, A., & Yailymov, B. (2025). Impact assessment of Kakhovka Dam destruction on agricultural land in Ukraine. Science of Remote Sensing, 12, 100257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.srs.2025.100257

Yao, J., et al. (2018). Adaptive Hough transform for circle detection. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 27(6), 2720–2733. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIP.2018.2806231

Zhang, L., et al. (2016). Robust circle detection via parameter optimization. Pattern Recognition, 54, 35–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patcog.2016.01.008

Ziou, D., & Tabbone, S. (1998). Edge detection techniques: A review. International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, 8(4), 537–559.

Published

2026-05-29

How to Cite

Glazunova, O., Bolbot, I., Rudenskyi, R., Kravchenko, V., Tsyganov, O., & Tonkha, O. (2026). Application of Artificial Intelligence for Crater Detection in Areas Affected by Military Actions. Visnyk of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Geology, 2(113), 114-126. https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2713.113.14