Weighted Nonlocal Low-Rank Tensor Decomposition Method for Sparse Unmixing of Hyperspectral Images

The low spatial resolution of hyperspectral images leads to the coexistence of multiple ground objects in a single pixel (called mixed pixels). A large number of mixed pixels in a hyperspectral image hinders the subsequent analysis and application of the image. In order to solve this problem, a novel sparse unmixing method, which considers highly similar patches in nonlocal regions of a hyperspectral image, is proposed in this article. This method exploits spectral correlation by using collaborative sparsity regularization and spatial information by employing total variation and weighted nonlocal low-rank tensor regularization. To effectively utilize the tensor decomposition, nonlocal similar patches are first grouped together. Then, these nonlocal patches are stacked to form a patch group tensor. Finally, weighted low-rank tensor regularization is enforced to constrain the patch group to obtain an estimated low-rank abundance image. Experiments on simulated and real hyperspectral datasets validated the superiority of the proposed method in better maintaining fine details and obtaining better unmixing results.