A Batch-Mode Active Learning Algorithm Using Region-Partitioning Diversity for SVM Classifier

In this paper, a region-partitioning active learning (AL) technique is proposed for classification of remote sensing (RS) images based on the support vector machines (SVM) classifier. In the batch-mode AL process, diversity information is required to select a batch of informative samples. A new AL technique that aims to introduce diversity information is proposed based on relative positions of candidate samples in the feature space. The proposed technique selects informative samples according to an uncertainty criterion at each iteration. These samples are selected with an extra constraint to guarantee that they are not located in the same region of the feature space. The proposed technique is compared with state-of-the-art methods adopted in the RS community. Experimental tests were performed on three data sets, including one very high spatial resolution multispectral data set and two hyperspectral data sets. The proposed algorithm displays a classification performance that is similar to or even better than the state-of-the-art methods. In addition, the proposed algorithm performs efficiently in terms of computational time.