Pansharpening of PRISMA products for archaeological prospection
This work addresses the problem of low spatial resolution in satellite hyperspectral data for geo-archaeological prospection, offering an incremental improvement by applying existing pansharpening methods to new data.
The study evaluated pansharpening methods (GSA, MTF-GLP, HySure) on PRISMA satellite data to improve spatial resolution for detecting sub-surface archaeological features in Aquileia, Italy, finding that these techniques make hyperspectral imagery highly suitable for identifying both small and large features under certain conditions.
Hyperspectral data recorded from satellite platforms are often ill-suited for geo-archaeological prospection due to low spatial resolution. The established potential of hyperspectral data from airborne sensors in identifying archaeological features has, on the other side, generated increased interest in enhancing hyperspectral data to achieve higher spatial resolution. This improvement is crucial for detecting traces linked to sub-surface geo-archaeological features and can make satellite hyperspectral acquisitions more suitable for archaeological research. This research assesses the usability of pansharpened PRISMA satellite products in geo-archaeological prospections. Three pan-sharpening methods (GSA, MTF-GLP and HySure) are compared quantitatively and qualitatively and tested over the archaeological landscape of Aquileia (Italy). The results suggest that the application of pansharpening techniques makes hyperspectral satellite imagery highly suitable, under certain conditions, to the identification of sub-surface archaeological features of small and large size.