Learning Deep Hierarchical Spatial–Spectral Features for Hyperspectral Image Classification Based on Residual 3D-2D CNN

Every pixel in a hyperspectral image contains detailed spectral information in hundreds of narrow bands captured by hyperspectral sensors. Pixel-wise classification of a hyperspectral image is the cornerstone of various hyperspectral applications. Nowadays, deep learning models represented by the convolutional neural network (CNN) provides an ideal solution for feature extraction, and has made remarkable achievements in supervised hyperspectral classification. However, hyperspectral image annotation is time-consuming and laborious, and available training data is usually limited. Due to the “small-sample problem”, CNN-based hyperspectral classification is still challenging. Focused on the limited sample-based hyperspectral classification, we designed an 11-layer CNN model called R-HybridSN (Residual-HybridSN) from the perspective of network optimization. With an organic combination of 3D-2D-CNN, residual learning, and depth-separable convolutions, R-HybridSN can better learn deep hierarchical spatial–spectral features with very few training data. The performance of R-HybridSN is evaluated over three public available hyperspectral datasets on different amounts of training samples. Using only 5%, 1%, and 1% labeled data for training in Indian Pines, Salinas, and University of Pavia, respectively, the classification accuracy of R-HybridSN is 96.46%, 98.25%, 96.59%, respectively, which is far better than the contrast models.