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Nonlinear unmixing algorithms are playing a key role in modern earth observation analysis thanks to their ability to characterize complex phenomena occurring in the instantaneous field of view. When unmixing hyperspectral images according to nonlinear mixture models by means of state-of-the-art methods, actual abundances of the elements in the scene can be only indirectly estimated. Thus, the reliability of the investigation can be dramatically jeopardized, hence degrading the accuracy of the characterization of the surface composition. In order to overcome this issue, we propose in this paper a nonlinear programming scheme that aims at providing direct estimation of the end members fractions. The method we introduce is based on a structural optimization approach where the abundances are directly assessed, so that no epistemic uncertainties are injected in the framework. Experimental results show that the proposed method is able to deliver accurate and reliable estimates of these quantities in hyperspectral images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately estimating the elements in Earth observations is crucial when assessing specific features such as air quality index, water pollution, or urbanization process behavior. Moreover, physical–chemical composition can be retrieved from hyperspectral images when proper spectral unmixing architectures are employed. Specifically, when linear and nonlinear combinations of endmembers (pure spectral components) are accurately characterized, hyperspectral unmixing plays a key role in understanding and quantifying phenomena occurring over the instantaneous field-of-view. Thus, reliable detection of nonlinear reflectance behavior can play a key role in enhancing hyperspectral unmixing performance. In this paper, two new methods for adaptive design of mixture models for hyperspectral unmixing are introduced. One of the methods relies on exploiting geometrical features of hyperspectral signatures in terms of nonorthogonal projections onto the space induced by the endmembers’ spectra. Then, an iterative process aims at understanding the order of local nonlinearity that is displayed by each endmember over every pixel. An improved version of an artificial neural network-based approach for nonlinearity order information is also considered and compared. Experimental results show that the proposed approaches are actually able to retrieve thorough information on the nature of the nonlinear effects over the image, while providing excellent performance in reconstructing the given data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, a new method for higher order nonlinear hyperspectral unmixing is introduced. The proposed scheme relies on the harmonic description of the endmembers contributions to characterize the interactions among the materials showing up in the given scenes. Moreover, it aims at directly estimating the probability of occurrence of each material in the images, so to provide an accurate quantification of the endmembers also in complex scenarios. Experimental results carried out on synthetic and real data sets show that the proposed method is able to obtain good unmixing performance when compared to other state-of-the-art architectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher order nonlinear material mixtures provide a good model to explain the effects of physical–chemical phenomena on hyperspectral remote sensing measurements. Therefore, inverting nonlinear effects starting from the measured spectral values is a very challenging yet fundamental task to provide a thorough and reliable characterization of the materials in a scene. In this paper, this task is achieved by inverting a new model for nonlinear hyperspectral mixtures. Specifically, we show that it is possible to effectively unmix hyperspectral data by assuming a harmonic description of the higher order nonlinear combination of the endmembers. The rationale for this model is that the harmonic analysis is able to understand and quantify effects that cannot be effectively described by classic polynomial combinations. Although the model is nonlinear, unmixing is performed by solving a linear system thanks to the recently proposed polytope decomposition (POD). Experimental results show that inverting this model leads to improved performances with respect to the state of the art in terms of endmember abundance estimation both over synthetic and real datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to achieve a better knowledge of the effect of the anthropogenic extents over the environment, extracting reliable and effective information by Earth observations (EOs) is crucial to help developing a sound human–environment interaction (HEI) assessment. In this sense, the use of future hyperspectral sensors for wide area characterization leads to the need of hyperspectral unmixing (HSU) architectures to recognize urban materials and structures. Further, as urban settlements are often characterized by geometrically and spectrally complex scenarios, the nonlinear reflectance interplay among the elements that constitute each scene must be very well detailed and described so that a thorough knowledge of the scenes can be carried out. In this paper, properly set higher order nonlinear mixture models are used to perform an accurate characterization of the anthropogenic settlements in several EO scenes acquired in different continents. Moreover, a brand new index for estimation of urban extents is provided. Experimental results show how the proposed approach is able to deliver accurate and reliable characterization of urban materials and extents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]