Hyperspectral Endmember Extraction Techniques

Hyperspectral data processing and analysis mainly plays a vital role in detection, identification, discrimination and estimation of earth surface materials. It involves atmospheric correction, dimensionality reduction, endmember extraction, spectral unmixing and classification phases. One of the ultimate aims of hyperspectral data processing and analysis is to achieve high classification accuracy. The classification accuracy of hyperspectral data most probably depends upon image-derived endmembers. Ideally, an endmember is defined as a spectrally unique, idealized and pure signature of a surface material. Extraction of consistent and desired endmember is one of the important criteria to achieve the high accuracy of hyperspectral data classification and spectral unmixing. Several methods, strategies and algorithms are proposed by various researchers to extract the endmembers from hyperspectral imagery. Most of these techniques and algorithms are significantly dependent on user-defined input parameters, and this issue is subjective because there is no standard specificity about these input parameters. This leads to inconsistencies in overall endmember extraction. To resolve the aforementioned problems, systematic, generic, robust and automated mechanism of endmember extraction is required. This chapter gives and highlights the generic approach of endmember extraction with popular algorithm limitations and challenges

An overview on hyperspectral unmixing: Geometrical, statistical, and sparse regression based approaches

Hyperspectral instruments acquire electromagnetic energy scattered within their ground instantaneous field view in hun-dreds of spectral channels with high spectral resolution. Very often, however, owing to low spatial resolution of the scan-ner or to the presence of intimate mixtures (mixing of the materials at a very small scale) in the scene, the spectral vec-tors (collection of signals acquired at different spectral bands from a given pixel) acquired by the hyperspectral scanners are actually mixtures of the spectral signatures of the materials present in the scene. Given a set of mixed spectral vectors, spectral mixture analysis (or spectral unmixing) aims at estimating the number of reference materials, also called endmembers, their spectral signatures, and their fractional abundances. Spectral unmix

Méthodes de séparation aveugle de sources et application à la télédétection spatiale

Cette thèse concerne la séparation aveugle de sources, qui consiste à estimer un ensemble de signaux sources inconnus à partir d'un ensemble de signaux observés qui sont des mélanges à paramètres inconnus de ces signaux sources. C'est dans ce cadre que le travail de recherche de cette thèse concerne le développement et l'utilisation de méthodes linéaires innovantes de séparation de sources pour des applications en imagerie de télédétection spatiale. Des méthodes de séparation de sources sont utilisées pour prétraiter une image multispectrale en vue d'une classification supervisée de ses pixels. Deux nouvelles méthodes hybrides non-supervisées, baptisées 2D-Corr-NLS et 2D-Corr-NMF, sont proposées pour l'extraction de cartes d'abondances à partir d'une image multispectrale contenant des pixels purs. Ces deux méthodes combinent l'analyse en composantes parcimonieuses, le clustering et les méthodes basées sur les contraintes de non-négativité. Une nouvelle méthode non-supervisée, baptisée 2D-VM, est proposée pour l'extraction de spectres à partir d'une image hyperspectrale contenant des pixels purs. Cette méthode est basée sur l'analyse en composantes parcimonieuses. Enfin, une nouvelle méthode est proposée pour l'extraction de spectres à partir d'une image hyperspectrale ne contenant pas de pixels purs, combinée avec une image multispectrale, de très haute résolution spatiale, contenant des pixels purs. Cette méthode est fondée sur la factorisation en matrices non-négatives couplée avec les moindres carrés non-négatifs. Comparées à des méthodes de la littérature, d'excellents résultats sont obtenus par les approches méthodologiques proposées.This thesis concerns the blind source separation problem, which consists in estimating a set of unknown source signals from a set of observed signals which are mixtures of these source signals, with unknown mixing coefficients. In this thesis, we develop and use innovative linear source separation methods for applications in remote sensing imagery. Source separation methods are used and applied in order to preprocess a multispectral image for a supervised classification of this image. Two new unsupervised methods, called 2D-Corr-NLS and 2D-Corr-NMF, are proposed in order to extract abundance maps from a multispectral image with pure pixels. These methods are based on sparse component analysis, clustering and non-negativity constraints. A new unsupervised method, called 2D-VM, is proposed in order to extract endmember spectra from a hyperspectral image with pure pixels. This method is based on sparse component analysis. Also, a new method is proposed for extracting endmember spectra from a hyperspectral image without pure pixels, combined with a very high spatial resolution multispectral image with pure pixels. This method is based on non-negative matrix factorization coupled with non-negative least squares. Compared to literature methods, excellent results are obtained by the proposed methodological approaches

Hyperspectral Unmixing Overview: Geometrical, Statistical, and Sparse Regression-Based Approaches

Imaging spectrometers measure electromagnetic energy scattered in their instantaneous field view in hundreds or thousands of spectral channels with higher spectral resolution than multispectral cameras. Imaging spectrometers are therefore often referred to as hyperspectral cameras (HSCs). Higher spectral resolution enables material identification via spectroscopic analysis, which facilitates countless applications that require identifying materials in scenarios unsuitable for classical spectroscopic analysis. Due to low spatial resolution of HSCs, microscopic material mixing, and multiple scattering, spectra measured by HSCs are mixtures of spectra of materials in a scene. Thus, accurate estimation requires unmixing. Pixels are assumed to be mixtures of a few materials, called endmembers. Unmixing involves estimating all or some of: the number of endmembers, their spectral signatures, and their abundances at each pixel. Unmixing is a challenging, ill-posed inverse problem because of model inaccuracies, observation noise, environmental conditions, endmember variability, and data set size. Researchers have devised and investigated many models searching for robust, stable, tractable, and accurate unmixing algorithms. This paper presents an overview of unmixing methods from the time of Keshava and Mustard's unmixing tutorial [1] to the present. Mixing models are first discussed. Signal-subspace, geometrical, statistical, sparsity-based, and spatial-contextual unmixing algorithms are described. Mathematical problems and potential solutions are described. Algorithm characteristics are illustrated experimentally.Comment: This work has been accepted for publication in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensin

Context dependent spectral unmixing.

A hyperspectral unmixing algorithm that finds multiple sets of endmembers is proposed. The algorithm, called Context Dependent Spectral Unmixing (CDSU), is a local approach that adapts the unmixing to different regions of the spectral space. It is based on a novel function that combines context identification and unmixing. This joint objective function models contexts as compact clusters and uses the linear mixing model as the basis for unmixing. Several variations of the CDSU, that provide additional desirable features, are also proposed. First, the Context Dependent Spectral unmixing using the Mahalanobis Distance (CDSUM) offers the advantage of identifying non-spherical clusters in the high dimensional spectral space. Second, the Cluster and Proportion Constrained Multi-Model Unmixing (CC-MMU and PC-MMU) algorithms use partial supervision information, in the form of cluster or proportion constraints, to guide the search process and narrow the space of possible solutions. The supervision information could be provided by an expert, generated by analyzing the consensus of multiple unmixing algorithms, or extracted from co-located data from a different sensor. Third, the Robust Context Dependent Spectral Unmixing (RCDSU) introduces possibilistic memberships into the objective function to reduce the effect of noise and outliers in the data. Finally, the Unsupervised Robust Context Dependent Spectral Unmixing (U-RCDSU) algorithm learns the optimal number of contexts in an unsupervised way. The performance of each algorithm is evaluated using synthetic and real data. We show that the proposed methods can identify meaningful and coherent contexts, and appropriate endmembers within each context. The second main contribution of this thesis is consensus unmixing. This approach exploits the diversity and similarity of the large number of existing unmixing algorithms to identify an accurate and consistent set of endmembers in the data. We run multiple unmixing algorithms using different parameters, and combine the resulting unmixing ensemble using consensus analysis. The extracted endmembers will be the ones that have a consensus among the multiple runs. The third main contribution consists of developing subpixel target detectors that rely on the proposed CDSU algorithms to adapt target detection algorithms to different contexts. A local detection statistic is computed for each context and then all scores are combined to yield a final detection score. The context dependent unmixing provides a better background description and limits target leakage, which are two essential properties for target detection algorithms

Linear unmixing of multidate hyperspectral imagery for crop yield estimation

International audienc

Effects of spatial resolution,land-cover heterogeneity and different classification methods on accuracy of land-cover mapping

Despite improved spatial and spectral characteristics of satellite and aerial imaging systems, land-cover classification is still challenged by a continuously evolving and complex rural and urban landscape conditions resulting from diverse land-use scenarios. Sizes and material composition of impervious surfaces changes greatly from urban to rural areas, leading to varying spectral signatures and ultimately misclassification. This creates a challenge in choosing suitable classification algorithms and image processing methods. In this study, the influence of spatial resolution and land-cover spectral and spatial heterogeneity on accuracy of land-cover classification at a rural-urban interface was examined alongside comparison of Random Forest (RF) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification algorithms. Further, the performance of spectral unmixing strategies was tested against standard feature extraction methods, namely, NAPCA and PCA. The results showed a 10 % improvement in classification accuracy from 30 m to 10 m spatial resolution for both overall accuracy and Kappa coefficients, however, relatively high per-pixel class disagreement (39 %) was recorded between the different resolution maps, pointing to the fact that overall accuracy or Kappa coefficients may not capture the spatial resolution effects on classification accuracy results in its entirety. SVM classifier proved superior to the RF classifier with even a relatively bigger margin at the coarser spatial resolution (i.e. 4.9 % and 5.7 % higher accuracy at 10 m and 30 m spatial resolution respectively). Higher classification accuracies were observed for partial unmixing and sum-to-unity unmixing feature extraction strategies at both spatial resolutions relative to the results from PCA, NAPCA and original image data (i.e. 62 %, 61 %, 51 %, 61 % and 59 % respectively for 30 m resolution, and, 67 %, 67 %, 62 %, 65 % and 66 % respectively for 10 m resolution image). It was found that the dominance of unmixing-based feature extraction methods reduced while the standard dimensionality reduction approaches (NAPCA and PCA) made a zero contribution to improving classification accuracy at finer spatial resolution (i.e. 10 m). According to the results of land-cover heterogeneity assessment, more fragmented and spatially diverse landscapes were comparably more spectrally diverse along the rural-urban gradient. A high degree of landscape heterogeneity and lowest classification accuracy was observed in the peri-urban region at approximately 11 kilometers from the very urban area. The findings indicate that landscapes with high PD, LSI, SHDI and low CONTAG have lower accuracy while homogeneous and less fragmented landscapes have higher accuracy. The findings from the study will provide a basis for more accurate time series analysis of land-use dynamics at the rural-urban interface

Estimación del sellado del suelo mediante técnicas de análisis espectral

El crecimiento de las superficies artificiales urbanas lleva asociado la impermeabilización del medio natural, conocida como sellado del suelo, que provoca una serie de efectos perjudiciales sobre el medio ambiente. Este artículo trata de desarrollar un método para facilitar la estimación de estas superficies y poder establecer medidas de control al respecto. Las técnicas de teledetección ofrecen interesantes posibilidades de clasificación en entornos urbanos. En este trabajo se ha evaluado la utilización de las técnicas espectrales Análisis Lineal de Mezclas Espectrales (ALME) y Sequential Maximum Angle Convex Cone (SMACC) sobre una imagen multiespectral SPOT-5, correspondiente al sector nororiental del municipio de Madrid. Finalmente se ha aplicado la técnica SMACC, en combinación con otras variables extraídas de la imagen, obteniendo una capa de sellado con una fiabilidad global del 83,75%. Los resultados obtenidos se comparan con los de la capa de sellado europea para España1, la cual obtiene una precisión global del 69,5% siguiendo el mismo método de validación utilizado en este trabajo.Increasing artificial surface, associated with urban growth, produces soil imperviousness, known as soil sealing, which causes a number of adverse effects on the environment. This paper aims to develop a methodology to facilitate the estimation of this surface type, in order to establish control measures. Remote sensing techniques provide interesting classification possibilities in urban areas. In this research, both Linear Spectral Mixing Analysis (LSMA) and Sequential Maximum Angle Convex Cone (SMACC) spectral analysis techniques have been tested on a SPOT-5 multispectral image, corresponding to the Northeastern sector of the city of Madrid. Finally, the SMACC technique was applied, in combination with other variables extracted from the image, getting as a result a sealed mask with an overall accuracy of 83,75%. The results were then compared to the existing European soil sealing layer for Spain1, which obtained an overall accuracy of 69,5% with the same accuracy assessment method used in this study

Méthodes de séparation aveugle de sources pour le démélange d'images de télédétection

Nous proposons dans le cadre de cette thèse, de nouvelles méthodes de séparation aveugle de mélanges linéaires instantanés pour des applications de télédétection. La première contribution est fondée sur la combinaison de deux grandes classes de méthodes de Séparation Aveugle de Sources (SAS) : l'Analyse en Composantes Indépendantes (ACI), et la Factorisation en Matrices Non-négatives (NMF). Nous montrons comment les contraintes physiques de notre problème peuvent être utilisées pour éliminer une partie des indéterminations liées à l'ACI et fournir une première approximation des spectres de endmembers et des fractions d'abondance associées. Ces approximations sont ensuite utilisées pour initialiser un algorithme de NMF, avec pour objectif de les améliorer. Les résultats obtenus avec notre méthode sont satisfaisants en comparaison avec les méthodes de la littérature utilisées dans les tests réalisés. La deuxième méthode proposée est fondée sur la parcimonie ainsi que sur des propriétés géométriques. Nous commençons par mettre en avant quelques propriétés facilitant la présentation des hypothèses considérées dans cette méthode, puis nous mettons en lumière les grandes lignes de cette dernière qui est basée sur la détermination des zones bi-sources contenues dans une image de télédétection, ceci à l'aide d'un critère de corrélation. A partir des intersections des droites générées par ces zones bi-sources, nous détaillons le moyen d'obtention des colonnes de la matrice de mélange et enfin des sources recherchées. Les résultats obtenus, en comparaison avec plusieurs méthodes de la littérature sont très encourageants puisque nous avons obtenu les meilleures performances.Within this thesis, we propose new blind source separation (BSS) methods intended for instantaneous linear mixtures, aimed at remote sensing applications. The first contribution is based on the combination of two broad classes of BSS methods : Independent Component Analysis (ICA), and Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). We show how the physical constraints of our problem can be used to eliminate some of the indeterminacies related to ICA and provide a first approximation of endmembers spectra and associated sources. These approximations are then used to initialize an NMF algorithm with the goal of improving them. The results we reached are satisfactory as compared with the classical methods used in our undertaken tests. The second proposed method is based on sparsity as well as on geometrical properties. We begin by highlighting some properties facilitating the presentation of the hypotheses considered 153 in the method. We then provide the broad lines of this approach which is based on the determination of the two-source zones that are contained in a remote sensing image, with the help of a correlation criterion. From the intersections of the lines generated by these two-source zones, we detail how to obtain the columns of the mixing matrix and the sought sources. The obtained results are quite attractive as compared with those reached by several methods from literature

Detecting soil erosion in semi-arid Mediterranean environments using simulated EnMAP data

Soil is an essential nature resource. Management of this resource is vital for sustainability and the continued functioning of earths atmospheric, hydrospheric and lithospheric functioning. The assessment and continued monitoring of surface soil state provides the information required to effectively manage this resource. This research used a simulated Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) hyperspectral image cube of an agricultural region in semi- arid Mediterranean Spain to classify soil erosion states. Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) was used to derive within pixel fractions of eroded and accumulated soils. A Classification of the soil erosion states using the scene fraction outputs and digital terrain information. The information products generated in this research provided an optimistic outlook for the applicability of the future EnMAP sensor for soil erosion investigations in semi-arid Mediterranean environments. Additionally, this research verifies that the launch of the EnMAP satellite sensor in 2018 will provide the opportunity to further improve the monitoring of earth finite soil resources.NSERC create AMETHYST , Alberta Terrestrial Imaging Centre