Modified nearest neighbour classifier for hyperspectral data classification

A modified k-nearest neighbour (k-NN) classifier is proposed for supervised remote sensing classification of hyperspectral data. To compare its performance in terms of classification accuracy and computational cost, k-NN and a back-propagation neural network classifier were used. A classification accuracy of 91.2% was achieved by the proposed classifier with the data set used. Results from this study suggest that the accuracy achieved with this classifier is significantly better than the k-NN and comparable to a back-propagation neural network. Comparison in terms of computational cost also suggests the effectiveness of modified k-NN classifier for hyperspectral data classification. A fuzzy entropy-based filter approach was used for feature selection to compare the performance of modified and k-NN classifiers with a reduced data set. The results suggest a significant increase in classification accuracy by the modified k-NN classifier in comparison with k-NN classifier with selected features.