Airborne hyperspectral discrimination of tree species with different ages using discrete wavelet transform

In this article, the capability of discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to discriminate tree species with different ages using airborne hyperspectral remote sensing is investigated. The performance of DWT is compared against commonly used traditional methods, i.e. original reflectance and first and second derivatives. The hyperspectral data are obtained from Thetford forest of the UK, which contains Corsican and Scots pines with different ages and broadleaved tree species. The discrimination is performed by employing three different spectral measurement techniques (SMTs) including Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM), Spectral Information Divergence (SID), and a combination of SAM and SID. Five different mother wavelets with a total of 50 different orders are tested. The wavelet detail coefficient (CD) from each decomposition level and combination of all CDs plus the approximation coefficient from the final decomposition level (C-All) are extracted from each mother wavelet. The results show the superiority of DWT against the reflectance and derivatives for all the three SMTs. In DWT, C-All provided the highest discrimination accuracy compared to other coefficients. An over- all accuracy difference of about 20 – 30% is observed between the finest coefficient and C-All. Amongst the SMTs, SID provided the highest accuracy, while SAM showed the lowest accuracy. Using DWT in combination with SID, an overall accuracy up to around 71.4% is obtained, which is around 13.5%, 14.7%, and 27% higher than the accuracies achieved with reflectance and first and second derivatives, respectively

Hyperspectral discrimination of tree species with different classifications using single- and multiple-endmember

Discrimination of tree species with different ages is performed in three classifications using hyperspectral data. The first classification is between Broadleaves and pines; the second classification is between Broadleaves, Corsican Pines, and Scots Pines, and the third classification is between six tree species including different ages of Corsican and Scots Pines. These three classifications are performed by having single- and multiple-endmember and considering five different spectral measure techniques (SMTs) in combination with reflectance spectra (ReflS), first and second derivative spectra. The result shows that using single-endmember, derivative spectra are not useful for a more challenging classification. This is further emphasized in multiple-endmember classification, where all SMTs perform better in ReflS rather than derivative in all classifications. Furthermore, using derivative spectra, discrimination accuracy become more dependent on the type of SMTs, especially in single-endmember. By employing multiple-endmember, the within species variation is significantly reduced, thereby, the remaining challenge in discriminating tree species with different ages is only due to the between-species similarity. Overall, discrimination accuracies around 92.4, 76.8, and 71.5% are obtained using original reflectance and multiple-endmember for the first, second, and third classification, which is around 14.3, 17, and 8.3% higher than what were obtained in single-endmember classifications, respectively. Also, amongst the five SMTs, Euclidean distance (in both single- and multiple-endmember) and Jeffreys–Matusita distance (in single-endmember and derivative spectra) provided the highest discrimination accuracies in different classifications. Furthermore, when discrimination become more challenging from the first to second and third classification, the performance difference between different SMTs is increased from 1.4 to 3.8 and 7.3%, respectively. The study shows high potential of multiple-endmember to be employed in remote sensing applications in the future for improving tree species discrimination accuracy

Models for Hyperspectral Image Analysis: From Unmixing to Object-Based Classification

International audienceThe recent advances in hyperspectral remote sensing technology allow the simultaneous acquisition of hundreds of spectral wavelengths for each image pixel. This rich spectral information of the hyperspectral data makes it possible to discriminate different physical substances, leading to a potentially more accurate classification and thus opening the door to numerous new applications. Throughout the history of remote sensing research, numerous methods for hyperspectral image analysis have been presented. Depending on the spatial resolution of the images, specific mathematical models must be designed to effectively analyze the imagery. Some of these models operate at a sub-pixel level, trying to decompose a mixed spectral signature into its pure constituents, while others operate at a pixel or even object level, seeking to assign unique labels to every pixel or object in the scene. The spectral mixing of the measurements and the high dimensionality of the data are some of the challenging features of hyperspectral imagery. This chapter presents an overview of unmixing and classification methods, intended to address these challenges for accurate hyperspectral data analysis