Hyperspectral target detection using self-supervised background learning

Abstract

Hyperspectral target detection is challenging in scenarios where spectral variability is high due to noise, spectral redundancy, and mixing. In addition, this spectral variability also creates the need for target detection algorithms to be robust against variations in the detection threshold. To overcome these challenges, this paper proposes a novel two-stage process for improved target detection in hyperspectral data. In the first stage, coarse detection is performed using a detector with a high probability of detection to identify background samples. These background samples are then used for background learning using an adversarial autoencoder (AAE) network, having spectral angle mapper (SAM) and Huber loss functions to minimize the impact of target pixels’ contamination. In the second stage, an inference is made using the spectral difference between the hyperspectral data and the output of the learned background model, which helps in reducing the false alarm rate of the first stage. The proposed approach is compared with seven other target detection techniques using multiple datasets and evaluated through several metrics, such as the area under the curve (AUC) and signal-to-noise probability ratio (SNPR). Results reveal that the proposed technique outperforms other detectors in terms of SNPR, indicating improved target detectability, background suppressibility, and more tolerance to variations in the detection threshold.