Models and methods for automated background density estimation in hyperspectral anomaly detection

Anomaly detection (AD) in remotely sensed hyperspectral images has been proven to be valuable in many applications. In this paper, we propose a scheme for detecting global anomalies in which a likelihood ratio test-based decision rule is applied in conjunction with automated data-driven estimation of the background probability density function (PDF). Specifically, the use of both semiparametric (finite mixtures) and nonparametric (Parzen windows) models is investigated for background PDF estimation. Although such approaches are well known in multivariate data analysis, they have been very seldom applied to estimate the hyperspectral image background PDF, mostly due to the difficulty of reliably learning the model parameters without operator intervention. In this paper, semi and nonparametric estimators have been successfully employed to estimate the image background PDF with the aim of detecting global anomalies in a scene benefiting from the application of ad hoc Bayesian learning strategies. Two real hyperspectral images have been used to experimentally evaluate the ability of the proposed AD scheme resulting from the application of different global background PDF models and learning methods. © 2012 IEEE.