Semi-supervised remote sensing image classification via maximum entropy

Remote sensing image segmentation requires multi-category classification typically with limited number of labeled training samples. While semi-supervised learning (SSL) has emerged as a sub-field of machine learning to tackle the scarcity of labeled samples, most SSL algorithms to date have had trade-offs in terms of scalability and/or applicability to multi-categorical data. In this paper, we evaluate semi-supervised logistic regression (SLR), a recent information theoretic semi-supervised algorithm, for remote sensing image classification problems. SLR is a probabilistic discriminative classifier and a specific instance of the generalized maximum entropy framework with a convex loss function. Moreover, the method is inherently multi-class and easy to implement. These characteristics make SLR a strong alternative to the widely used semi-supervised variants of SVM for the segmentation of remote sensing images. We demonstrate the competitiveness of SLR in multispectral, hyperspectral and radar image classification.