Fusion of China ZY-1 02D Hyperspectral Data and Multispectral Data: Which Methods Should Be Used?

ZY-1 02D is China’s first civil hyperspectral (HS) operational satellite, developed independently and successfully launched in 2019. It can collect HS data with a spatial resolution of 30 m, 166 spectral bands, a spectral range of 400~2500 nm, and a swath width of 60 km. Its competitive advantages over other on-orbit or planned satellites are its high spectral resolution and large swath width. Unfortunately, the relatively low spatial resolution may limit its applications. As a result, fusing ZY-1 02D HS data with high-spatial-resolution multispectral (MS) data is required to improve spatial resolution while maintaining spectral fidelity. This paper conducted a comprehensive evaluation study on the fusion of ZY-1 02D HS data with ZY-1 02D MS data (10-m spatial resolution), based on visual interpretation and quantitative metrics. Datasets from Hebei, China, were used in this experiment, and the performances of six common data fusion methods, namely Gram-Schmidt (GS), High Pass Filter (HPF), Nearest-Neighbor Diffusion (NND), Modified Intensity-Hue-Saturation (IHS), Wavelet Transform (Wavelet), and Color Normalized Sharping (Brovey), were compared. The experimental results show that: (1) HPF and GS methods are better suited for the fusion of ZY-1 02D HS Data and MS Data, (2) IHS and Brovey methods can well improve the spatial resolution of ZY-1 02D HS data but introduce spectral distortion, and (3) Wavelet and NND results have high spectral fidelity but poor spatial detail representation. The findings of this study could serve as a good reference for the practical application of ZY-1 02D HS data fusion.