Nonlinear Unmixing of Hyperspectral Data via Deep Autoencoder Networks

Nonlinear spectral unmixing is an important and challenging problem in hyperspectral image processing. Classical nonlinear algorithms are usually derived based on specific assumptions on the nonlinearity. In recent years, deep learning shows its advantage in addressing general nonlinear problems. However, existing ways of using deep neural networks for unmixing are limited and restrictive. In this letter, we develop a novel blind hyperspectral unmixing scheme based on a deep autoencoder network. Both encoder and decoder of the network are carefully designed so that we can conveniently extract estimated endmembers and abundances simultaneously from the nonlinearly mixed data. Because an autoencoder is essentially an unsupervised algorithm, this scheme only relies on the current data and, therefore, does not require additional training. Experimental results validate the proposed scheme and show its superior performance over several existing algorithms.