Using evolutionary computation to optimize an SVM used in detecting buried objects in FLIR imagery

Alex Paino; Mihail Popescu; James M. Keller; Kevin Stone

doi:10.1117/12.2014774

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7 June 2013 Using evolutionary computation to optimize an SVM used in detecting buried objects in FLIR imagery

Alex Paino, Mihail Popescu, James M. Keller, Kevin Stone

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Proceedings Volume 8709, Detection and Sensing of Mines, Explosive Objects, and Obscured Targets XVIII; 87091A (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2014774
Event: SPIE Defense, Security, and Sensing, 2013, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Abstract

In this paper we describe an approach for optimizing the parameters of a Support Vector Machine (SVM) as part of an algorithm used to detect buried objects in forward looking infrared (FLIR) imagery captured by a camera installed on a moving vehicle. The overall algorithm consists of a spot-finding procedure (to look for potential targets) followed by the extraction of several features from the neighborhood of each spot. The features include local binary pattern (LBP) and histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) as these are good at detecting texture classes. Finally, we project and sum each hit into UTM space along with its confidence value (obtained from the SVM), producing a confidence map for ROC analysis. In this work, we use an Evolutionary Computation Algorithm (ECA) to optimize various parameters involved in the system, such as the combination of features used, parameters on the Canny edge detector, the SVM kernel, and various HOG and LBP parameters. To validate our approach, we compare results obtained from an SVM using parameters obtained through our ECA technique with those previously selected by hand through several iterations of “guess and check”.

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Alex Paino, Mihail Popescu, James M. Keller, and Kevin Stone "Using evolutionary computation to optimize an SVM used in detecting buried objects in FLIR imagery", Proc. SPIE 8709, Detection and Sensing of Mines, Explosive Objects, and Obscured Targets XVIII, 87091A (7 June 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2014774

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