Geospatial Time Machine: A Generative Model to Enhance Spectral–Temporal Data Resolution

Geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) and data processing techniques have significantly advanced object detection, prediction, and classification tasks. However, the availability of machine learning-ready, labeled data for specific applications such as plant disease detection remains the major challenge for the broader adoption of GeoAI. For instance, collecting temporal unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery of agricultural crops to track disease emergence and progress requires substantial human labor and resources, which is often limited to a small spatial scale. Recognizing the pivotal role of temporal data in pattern recognition, object detection, and scene reconstruction, we introduce an innovative approach to augment multispectral temporal datasets: the geospatial time machine (GTM). Our proposed methodology combines graph neural network (GNN) and generative adversarial network (GAN) architectures to generate comprehensive synthetic temporal data encompassing multivariate time series. The results demonstrate that imagery generated through backcasting can enhance the accuracy of downstream classification tasks by up to 53% in plant disease detection, particularly in the initial stages of analyzing a crop growth using multispectral and multitemporal datasets.