Beyond pan-sharpening: Pixel-level fusion in remote sensing applications

The field of remote sensing is associated with an increasing amount of imagery data, mission after mission. Such an increase makes the application of image fusion techniques in remote sensing important. However, the interrelationship between the two fields is not well-understood. In fact, the term “image fusion” in remote sensing has usually been limited to one application only, that is pan-sharpening. Image fusion, however, is much broader and can be applied to serve different purposes within the field of remote sensing. This paper aims to show where pan-sharpening fits within the image fusion paradigm, to present some other applications of image fusion in remote sensing, and to highlight the advantages that image fusion can provide.