Title: Support Vector Machines in Remote Sensing: Lost in N-dimensional space?

Authors: Chris Bellman, Mark Shortis

Abstract:

Support vector machines are based on the principles of statistical learning theory. They are well
suited to problems of classification and regression and would claim to find the optimal separation of
classes even in cases that are difficult for other classifiers. For non-linear decision surfaces, kernel
methods can be used to map the input data into higher dimensional space, where a linear decision
surface can be found.

Although early implementations of SVMs were limited to binary classification problems, effective
methods have been developed to handle multi-class problems. While the technique has been
available for about 15 years, a search of the literature shows that, despite their appeal for some
classification problems and the prospect of a significant reduction of the size of training sets, SVMs
have not been widely adopted by the remote sensing community. The reasons for this are not clear
but could be linked to mathematical complexity, heavy computational loads or simply that
implementations are not available in tools commonly used by the remote sensing community.

This paper seeks to explain support vectors machines, review their use in remote sensing and
perhaps demystify them as a tool for supervised classification.