IMPACT OF UAV AND SENTINEL-2A IMAGERY FUSION ON VEGETATION INDICES PERFORMANCE

Abstract. Image fusion techniques can improve the quality of remote sensing images by combining high spatial resolution images with low spectral resolution images. This enhancement of the images may impact the performance of various vegetation indices (VI’s). This study investigates the impact of image fusion on the quality of vegetation indices by fusing UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) bands with Sentinel-2A images using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Brovery Transform (BT) fusion techniques.The fused images were used to calculate the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Normalized Difference Red Edge, Green Red Vegetation Index, and Normalized Difference Water Index. To assess the performance of the fused images, several image quality assessment metrics were used, including Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Entropy, etc...The results showed that image fusion techniques can improve the quality of images which is important to assess crop health. The PCA image fusion technique showed higher quality than the BT technique. The PCA fused images had lower RMSE, ERGAS, and Entropy Difference and higher UIQI, CC, and SSIM values than the original images. Moreover, the fused images produced higher VIs values than the Sentinel-2A images.Finally, scatter plots were created to compare the correlation between the VIs calculated from the original and fused images. The results showed a strong correlation between the VIs calculated from the Sentinel-2A and fused images, indicating that the fused images can accurately estimate vegetation health parameters. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential of image fusion techniques to improve the quality of VI’s for monitoring vegetation health.