Exploring Generalizable Remote Sensing Change Detection via Low-Rank Exchange Adaptation of Vision Foundation Model

Abstract Remote sensing change detection (CD) has achieved remarkable progress in recent years. However, little attention has been paid to generalizable change detection (GCD) methods that can effectively generalize to unseen scenarios or domains beyond the training distribution. The major challenges in GCD arise from domain diversity and bitemporal domain shifts in remote sensing images, caused by variations in imaging platforms, acquisition times, geographic regions, and observed events. To tackle these challenges, we propose GenCD, a GCD framework built upon vision foundation models (VFMs). Specifically, GenCD introduces two key components: (1) a Low-Rank Exchange Adaptation (LREA) strategy of VFMs that aligns bitemporal representations while preserving the generalization capacity of VFMs on single-temporal inputs; and (2) a Token-Guided Feature Refinement (TGFR) mechanism that leverages an input-independent token as a guide to refine difference features, improving the discrimination between changed and unchanged regions. We conduct extensive cross-dataset evaluations on eight diverse datasets across three binary CD tasks: land cover, land use, and building-only CD. The results consistently demonstrate the superior generalization of GenCD over SoTA methods, highlighting its effectiveness in GCD.