Learning the Kernel Combination for Object Categorization

Although Support Vector Machines(SVM) succeed in classifying several image databases using image descriptors proposed in the literature, no single descriptor can be optimal for general object categorization. This paper describes a novel framework to learn the optimal combination of kernels corresponding to multiple image descriptors before SVM training, leading to solve a quadratic programming problem efficiently. Our framework takes into account the variation of kernel matrix and imbalanced dataset, which are common in real world image categorization tasks. Experimental results on Graz-01 and Caltech-101 image databases show the effectiveness and robustness of our algorithm.