Infrared and Visible Image Fusion of Unmanned Agricultural Machinery Based on PIE and CGAN

In this study, we proposed an infrared and visible image fusion algorithm that combines PIE and CGAN to make unmanned agricultural machinery perceive environmental information promptly and avoid accidents during production in complex environments. First, we trained the CGAN using an infrared image and corresponding saliency regions. The infrared image is input into the trained network to obtain the saliency region mask. After morphological optimization, we performed image fusion based on the PIE. Finally, we enhanced the fusion results by contrast processing. This algorithm can realize fast image fusion and satisfy the requirements for real-time environmental perception of unmanned agricultural machines. In addition, the algorithm retains the details of visible images and highlights important information concerning humans and animals in infrared images. It performs well in standard deviation and information entropy.