A SAR Image Classification Algorithm Based on Multi-Feature Polarimetric Parameters Using FOA and LS-SVM

This paper presents a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image classification algorithm based on multi-feature using Fruit Fly Optimization Algorithm (FOA) and Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM). First, pixel-based information derived from three elements of coherency matrix, six parameters obtained by H/alpha/A decomposition and Freeman decomposition techniques, and three polarimetric parameters including the total receive power (SPAN), pedestal height, and Radar Vegetation Index (RVI), as well as region-based information derived from eight texture parameters obtained by Grey Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) are combined to use as the features of land cover. Second, Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA) is used to reduce the dimensionality of the multi-feature data derived from the integration of the pixel-based and region-based information. Third, LS-SVM is used as the classifier in this study due to its fast solving speed and desirable classification capability. Since the input parameters of LS-SVM significantly affect the classification performance, we employ FOA to obtain the optimized input parameters. Finally, the experiments on two fully polarimetric SAR images of various crops with a limited number of samples are implemented by the proposed method and other commonly used methods, respectively. The results show that the proposed method can attain better classification performances compared with other methods.