Decomposition of category mixture in a pixel and its application for supervised image classification

To make an accurate retrieval of the proportion of each category among mixed pixels (Mixel's) of a remotely sensed imagery, a maximum likelihood estimation method of category proportion is proposed. In this method, the observed multispectral vector is considered as probability variables along with the approximation that the supervised data of each category can be characterized by normal distribution. The results show that this method can retrieve accurate proportion of each category among Mixel's. And a index that can estimate the degree of error in each category is proposed. AS one of the application of the proportion estimation, a method for image classification based on category proportion estimation is proposed. In this method all pixel in a remotely sensed imagery are assumed to be Mixel's, and are classified to most dominant category. Among the Mixel's, there exists unconfidential pixels which should be categorized as unclassified pixels. In order to discriminate them, two types of criteria, Chi square and AIC, are proposed for fitness test on pure pixel hypothesis. Experimental result with a simulated dataset show an usefulness of proposed classification criterion compared to the conventional maximum likelihood criterion and applicability of the fitness tests based on Chi square and AIC,