Time series remote sensing image classification framework using combination of deep learning and multiple classifiers system

Recently, time series image (TSI) has been reported to be an effective resource to mapping fine land use/land cover (LULC), and deep learning, in particular, has been gaining growing attention in this field. However, deep learning methods using single classifier need further improvement for accurate TSI classification owing to the 1D temporal properties and insufficient dense time series of the remote sensing images. To overcome such disadvantages, we proposed an innovative approach involving construction of TSI and combination of deep learning and multiple classifiers system (MCS). Firstly, we used a normalised difference index (NDI) to establish an NDIsbased TSI and then designed a framework consisting of a deep learning-based feature extractor and multiple classifiers system (MCS) based classification model to classify the TSI. With the new approach, our experiments were conducted on Landsat images located in two counties, Sutter and Kings in California, United States. The experimental results indicate that our proposed method achieves great progress on accuracy improvement and LULC mapping, outperforming classifications using comparative deep learning and non-deep learning methods.