Improving remote sensing classification: A deep-learning-assisted model

In many industries and applications, obtaining and classifying remote sensing imagery plays a crucial role. The accuracy of classification, in particular the machine learning methods, mainly depends on a multitude of factors, among which one of the most important ones is the amount of training data. Obtaining sufficient amounts of training data, however, can be very difficult or costly, and one must find alternative ways to improve the accuracy of predictions. To this end, a possible solution that we provide in this study is to use a stochastic method for producing variations of the training images that will retain the important class-wide features and thereby enrich the machine learning's "understanding" of the variabilities. As such, we applied a stochastic algorithm to produce additional realizations of the limited input imagery and thereby significantly increase the final overall accuracy in a deep learning method. We found that by enlarging the initial training set by additional realizations, we are able to consistently improve classification accuracy, compared with generic image augmentation approaches. The results of this study show that there is a great opportunity to increase the accuracy of predictions when enough data are not available.