From Aerial to Satellite: Can Super-Resolution Enable Label-Free Model Transfer?

Abstract

Abstract. Satellite imagery enables large-scale remote sensing applications by providing frequent and large-scale coverage. However, its limited spatial resolution often restricts the use of satellite images in tasks that require detailed, fine-scale information. In contrast, aerial images offer a much higher spatial resolution, allowing the extraction of fine-grained features, but typically cover smaller, more localized areas. In this work, we investigate whether super-resolution (SR) methods can bridge the gap between aerial and high-resolution satellite imagery, enabling a label-free model transfer, meaning without fine-tuning our model with additional manual annotations. The idea is to enhance the spatial resolution of high-resolution satellite images, allowing models trained on aerial data to be directly applied to satellite images. Towards this goal, a state-of-the-art SR algorithm is used to upscale three high-resolution satellite images, matching the resolution of the aerial training data. Then, a segmentation network trained on an aerial image dataset is applied to segment roads and parking areas in the super-resolved satellite images. The approach is evaluated on an annotated dataset and compared to the results in the original satellite images. Additionally, we investigate its performance on a low-resolution aerial image. Our results demonstrate that SR facilitates the utilization of models trained on aerial image datasets for large-scale satellite applications without requiring new labels.