Spectral Pattern Recognition and Fuzzy ARTMAPClassification: Design Features, System Dynamicsand Real World Simulations

Classification of terrain cover from satellite radar imagery represents an area of considerable current interest and research. Most satellite sensors used for land applications are of the imaging type. They record data in a variety of spectral channels and at a variety of ground resolutions. Spectral pattern recognition refers to classification procedures utilizing pixel-by-pixel spectral information as the basis for automated land cover classification. A number of methods have been developed in the past to classify pixels [resolution cells] from multispectral imagery to a priori given land cover categories. Their ability to provide land cover information with high classification accuracies is significant for work where accurate and reliable thematic information is needed. The current trend towards the use of more spectral bands on satellite instruments, such as visible and infrared imaging spectrometers, and finer pixel and grey level resolutions will offer more precise possibilities for accurate identification. But as the complexity of the data grows, so too does the need for more powerful tools to analyse them. It is the major objective of this study to analyse the capabilities and applicability of the neural pattern recognition system, called fuzzy ARTMAP, to generate high quality classifications of urban land cover using remotely sensed images. Fuzzy ARTMAP synthesizes fuzzy logic and Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) by exploiting the formal similarity between the computations of fuzzy subsethood and the dynamics of category choice, search and learning. The paper describes design features, system dynamics and simulation algorithms of this learning system, which is trained and tested for classification (8 a priori given classes) of a multispectral image of a Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper scene (270 x 360 pixels) from the City of Vienna on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Fuzzy ARTMAP performance is compared with that of an error-based learning system based upon the multi-layer perceptron, and the Gaussian maximum likelihood classifier as conventional statistical benchmark on the same database. Both neural classifiers outperform the conventional classifier in terms of classification accuracy. Fuzzy ARTMAP leads to out-of-sample classification accuracies, very close to maximum performance, while the multi-layer perceptron - like the conventional classifier - shows difficulties to distinguish between some land use categories. (authors' abstract)