Spectral Profile Partial Least-Squares (SP-PLS): Local multivariate pansharpening on spectral profiles

Abstract

The compatibility of multispectral (MS) pansharpening algorithms with hyperspectral (HS) data is limited. With the recent development in HS satellites, there is a need for methods that can provide high spatial and spectral fidelity in both HS and MS scenarios.

The present article presents a fast pansharpening method, based on the division of similar hyperspectral data in spectral subgroups using k-means clustering and Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) profiling. Local Partial Least-Square (PLS) models are calibrated for each spectral subgroup against the respective pixels of the panchromatic image. The models are inverted to retrieve high-resolution pansharpened images. The method is tested against different methods that are able to handle both MS and HS pansharpening and assessed using reduced- and full-resolution evaluation methodologies. Based on a statistical multivariate approach, the proposed method is able to render uncertainty maps for spectral or spatial fidelity - functionality not reported in any other pansharpening study.