Application of Dempster-Shafer evidence theory to unsupervised classification in multisource remote sensing

The aim of this paper is to show that Dempster–Shafer evidence theory may be successfully applied to unsupervised classification in multisource remote sensing. Dempster–Shafer formulation allows to consider unions of classes, and to represent both imprecision and uncertainty, through the definition of belief and plausibility functions. These two functions, derived from mass function, are generally chosen in a supervised way. In this paper, we describe an unsupervised method, based on the comparison of monosource classification results, to select the classes necessary for Dempster–Shafer evidence combination and to define their mass functions. Data fusion is then performed, discarding invalid clusters (e.g., corresponding to conflicting information) thank to an iterative process. Unsupervised multisource classification algorithm is applied to MAC-Europe’91 multisensor airborne campaign data collected over the Orgeval French site. Classification results using different combinations of sensors (TMS and AirSAR) or wavelengths (L and C bands) are compared. Performance of data fusion is evaluated in terms of identification of land cover types. The best results are obtained when all three data sets are used. Furthermore, some other combinations of data are tried, and their ability to discriminate between the different land cover types is quantified.