Comparative Study of Edge Losses for Remote Sensing Image Super-Resolution

Abstract. Image super-resolution (SR) techniques have achieved significant performance improvements with the advancement of deep learning. Accordingly, deep learning-based SR methods have become the mainstream approach in SR research and are widely applied across various fields, including remote sensing. However, most state-of-the-art SR studies are primarily driven by computer vision research and tend to focus on generating visually realistic images rather than preserving structural fidelity with respect to the input images. In remote sensing applications, maintaining structural fidelity is particularly important because SR outputs are often used in downstream analytical tasks such as object detection.
In this study, we investigate the use of edge loss to enhance the structural fidelity of SR images for remote sensing imagery. The effectiveness of edge loss was evaluated using multiple benchmark datasets on both convolutional neural network (CNN)- and generative adversarial network (GAN)-based SR models. Several representative SR network architectures and GAN training frameworks were employed to assess the impact of integrating edge loss into the training objective. The experimental results demonstrate that incorporating edge loss improves both the structural fidelity and perceptual quality of SR images. Among the evaluated edge operators, the Prewitt-based edge loss showed the most consistent improvements compared with the Sobel- and Laplacian-based edge losses. These results indicate that edge loss is an effective and easily implementable strategy for improving SR reconstruction quality in remote sensing imagery. Furthermore, it can be combined with other edge-aware techniques to further enhance perceptual quality.