Semantic Segmentation of SAR Images Through Fully Convolutional Networks and Hierarchical Probabilistic Graphical Models

This paper addresses the semantic segmentation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images through the combination of ful-ly convolutional networks (FCN s), hierarchical probabilistic graphical models (PGMs), and decision tree ensembles. The idea is to incorporate long-range spatial information together with the multiresolution information extracted by FCN s, through the multiresolution graph topology on which hierar-chical PGMs can be efficiently formulated. The objective is to obtain accurate classification results with small datasets and reduce problems of spatial inconsistency. The experimental validation is conducted with several COSMO-SkyMed satel-lite images over Northern Italy. The results are significant, as the proposed method obtains more accurate classification results than the standard FCN s considered.