Performance Analysis of Maximum Likelihood and Artificial Neural Network Classifiers for Training Sets with Mixed Pixels

This study evaluates the performance of an artificial neural network, specifically a multilayer perceptron, and a maximum likelihood algorithm to classify multitemporal Landsat ETM+ remote sensor data. The study area in Turkey is a mountainous region that contains many small scattered fields, usually 5-10 pixels in size. The classifiers were employed to identify eight land cover/use features covering the bulk of the study area using the same training and test datasets in order to avoid any difference resulting from sampling variations. Results show that the neural network approach performed better in extracting land cover information from multispectral and multitemporal images with training data sets including a large amount of mixed and atypical pixels. The maximum likelihood classifier was found to be ineffective, particularly in classifying spectrally similar categories and classes having subclasses.