A multivariable optical remote sensing image feature discretization method applied to marine vessel targets recognition

The effective extraction of continuous features in ocean optical remote sensing image is the key to achieve the automatic detection and identification for marine vessel targets. Since many of the existing data mining algorithms can only deal with discrete attributes, it is necessary to transform the continuous features into discrete ones for adapting to these intelligent algorithms. However, most of the current discretization methods do not consider the mutual exclusion within the attribute set when selecting breakpoints, and cannot guarantee that the indiscernible relationship of information system is not destroyed. Obviously, they are not suitable for processing ocean optical remote sensing data with multiple features. Aiming at this problem, a multivariable optical remote sensing image feature discretization method applied to marine vessel targets recognition is presented in this paper. Firstly, the information equivalent model of remote sensing image is established based on the theories of information entropy and rough set. Secondly, the change extent of indiscernible relationship in the model before and after discretization is evaluated. Thirdly, multiple scans are executed for each band until the termination condition is satisfied for generating the optimal number of intervals. Finally, we carry out the simulation analysis of the high-resolution remote sensing image data collected near the coast of South China Sea. In addition, we also compare the proposed method with the current mainstream discretization algorithms. Experiments validate that the proposed method has better comprehensive performance in terms of interval number, data consistency, running time, prediction accuracy and recognition rate.