Nonlinear Multiple Kernel Learning with Multiple-Structure-Element Extended Morphological Profiles for Hyperspectral Image Classification

In this paper, we propose a novel multiple kernel learning (MKL) framework to incorporate both spectral and spatial features for hyperspectral image classification, which is called multiple-structure-element nonlinear MKL (MultiSE-NMKL). In the proposed framework, multiple structure elements (MultiSEs) are employed to generate extended morphological profiles (EMPs) to present spatial-spectral information. In order to better mine interscale and interstructure similarity among EMPs, a nonlinear MKL (NMKL) is introduced to learn an optimal combined kernel from the predefined linear base kernels. We integrate this NMKL with support vector machines (SVMs) and reduce the min-max problem to a simple minimization problem. The optimal weight for each kernel matrix is then solved by a projection-based gradient descent algorithm. The advantages of using nonlinear combination of base kernels and multiSE-based EMP are that similarity information generated from the nonlinear interaction of different kernels is fully exploited, and the discriminability of the classes of interest is deeply enhanced. Experiments are conducted on three real hyperspectral data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better performance for hyperspectral image classification, compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms. The MultiSE EMPs can provide much higher classification accuracy than using a single-SE EMP.