Feature selection based on max–min-associated indices for classification of remotely sensed imagery

Abstract

This article proposes two novel feature selection methods for dimension reduction according to max–min-associated indices derived from Cramer's V-test coefficient. The proposed methods incrementally select features simultaneously satisfying the criteria of a statistically maximal association (A) between target labels and features and a minimal association (R) among selected features with respect to Cramer's V-test value. Two indices are developed by different combinations of the A and R conditions. One index is to maximize A/R and the other is to maximize A–λR, which are referred to as the MMAIQ and MMAIS methods, respectively. Since the proposed feature selection algorithms are feature filter methods, how to determine the best number of features is another important issue. This article adopts an information lost criterion by measuring the variation between χ² and β statistics to optimize the number of features selected associated with the Gaussian maximal likelihood classifier (GMLC). To validate the proposed methods, experiments are conducted with both a hyperspectral image data set and a high spatial resolution image data set. The results demonstrate that the proposed methods can provide an effective tool for feature selection and improve classification accuracy significantly. Furthermore, the proposed methods with well-known feature selection methods, i.e. mutual information-based max-dependency criterion (mRMR) and sequential forward selection (SFS), are evaluated and compared. The experiments demonstrate that the proposed methods can offer better results in terms of kappa coefficient and overall classification accuracy measurements.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40801181, 40901221), Key Science Fund Project of Fujian province (No. 2011Y0036) and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian province (No. 2010J01251).