Spectral Variability Aware Blind Hyperspectral Image Unmixing Based on Convex Geometry

Abstract: Hyperspectral image unmixing has proven to be a useful technique to interpret hyperspectral data, and is a prolific research topic in the community. Most of the approaches used to perform linear unmixing are based on convex geometry concepts, because of the strong geometrical structure of the linear mixing model. However, two main phenomena lead to question this model, namely nonlinearities and the spectral variability of the materials. Many algorithms based on convex geometry are still used when considering these two limitations of the linear model. A natural question is to wonder to what extent these concepts and tools (Intrinsic Dimensionality estimation, endmember extraction algorithms, pixel purity) can be safely used in these different scenarios. In this paper, we analyze them with a focus on endmember variability, assuming that the linear model holds. In the light of this analysis, we propose an integrated unmixing chain which tries to adress the shortcomings of the classical tools used in the linear case, based on our previously proposed extended linear mixing model. We show the interest of the proposed approach on simulated and real datasets.