Remote sensing image segmentation using SVM with automatic selection for the kernel parameters

The kernel function plays a basic role in support vector machines (SVM) algorithms. This paper presents an automatic method for selecting the parameters of the Gaussian radial basis function (GRBF) kernel which is one of the commonly used forms in SVM regression algorithms. The proposed method uses the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm for the automatic selection. The SVM regression algorithm is used to solve two major problems in remote sensing image segmentation: the density estimation problem and the Markov random field modeling problem. The density estimation is used for class conditional probabilities in Bayesian setups. The MRF is used for region modeling in boosting the Bayesian image segmentation. The proposed algorithms are integrated in a framework for remote sensing image segmentation. Experimental evaluation of the proposed algorithms using synthetic data set and hyperspectral data set illustrates the outstanding performance of the proposed algorithms.