Multidimensional local spatial autocorrelation measure for integrating spatial and spectral information in hyperspectral image band selection

Abstract

Hyperspectral band selection aims at the determination of an optimal subset of spectral bands for dimensionality reduction without loss of discriminability. Many conventional band selection approaches depend on the concept of "statistical distance" measure between the probability distributions characterizing sample classes. However, the maximization of separability does not necessarily guarantee that a classification process results in the best classification accuracies. This paper presents a multidimensional local spatial autocorrelation (MLSA) measure that quantifies the spatial autocorrelation of the hyperspectral image data. Based on the proposed spatial measure, a collaborative band selection strategy is developed that combines both spectral separability measure and spatial homogeneity measure for hyperspectral band selection without losing the spectral details useful in classification processes. The selected band subset by the proposed method shows both larger separability between classes and stronger spatial similarity within class. Case studies in biomedical and remote sensing applications demonstrate that the MLSA-based band selection approach improves object classification accuracies in hyperspectral imaging compared with conventional approaches.