SAR Image Fusion Classification Based on Improved D-S Evidence Theory

Abstract

Applications for classifying Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images are critical to environmental monitoring, urban planning, and land resource surveying. Fusion approaches work well for increasing SAR image categorization accuracy. However, effective processing of uncertainty information is frequently overlooked by conventional fusion classification systems. This paper presented a fusion classification approach for SAR images based on improved Dempster-Shafer (D-S) evidence theory, taking into account the uncertainty and possible conflicts in the classifiers’ output. First, after adaptively identifying the optimal hyperparameters of models, the SAR data is identified using Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and Random Forest (RF). Different weights are then allocated in accordance with the variations in classifier performance. Ultimately, enhanced D-S evidence theory is used to integrate the output of these classifiers. In addition, uncertainty in classification results is also modeled and visualized. Experiments with Flevoland and Oberpfaffenhofen datasets show that the accuracy of this method is 85.21% and 91.88% respectively, outperforming both the soft voting ensemble classifier (SVE) and D-S evidence theory fusion method. This approach enhances the comprehension and capacity to manage uncertainty in the model output in addition to increasing the accuracy and reliability of the classification of SAR data.