Efficient remote sensing image classification with Gaussian processes and Fourier features

This paper presents an efficient methodology for approximating kernel functions in Gaussian process classification (GPC). Two models are introduced. We first include the standard random Fourier features (RFF) approximation into GPC, which largely improves the computational efficiency and permits large scale remote sensing data classification. In addition, we develop a novel approach which avoids randomly sampling a number of Fourier frequencies, and alternatively learns the optimal ones using a variational Bayes approach. The performance of the proposed methods is illustrated in complex problems of cloud detection from multispectral imagery.