FE-MCFN: Fuzzy-Enhanced Multi-Scale Cross-Modal Fusion Network for Hyperspectral and LiDAR Joint Data Classification

With the rapid advancement of remote sensing technologies, the joint classification of hyperspectral image (HSI) and LiDAR data has become a key research focus in the field. To address the impact of inherent uncertainties in hyperspectral images on classification—such as the “same spectrum, different materials” and “same material, different spectra” phenomena, as well as the complexity of spectral features. Furthermore, existing multimodal fusion approaches often fail to fully leverage the complementary advantages of hyperspectral and LiDAR data. We propose a fuzzy-enhanced multi-scale cross-modal fusion network (FE-MCFN) designed to achieve joint classification of hyperspectral and LiDAR data. The FE-MCFN enhances convolutional neural networks through the application of fuzzy theory and effectively integrates global contextual information via a cross-modal attention mechanism. The fuzzy learning module utilizes a Gaussian membership function to assign weights to features, thereby adeptly capturing uncertainties and subtle distinctions within the data. To maximize the complementary advantages of multimodal data, a fuzzy fusion module is designed, which is grounded in fuzzy rules and integrates multimodal features across various scales while taking into account both local features and global information, ultimately enhancing the model’s classification performance. Experimental results obtained from the Houston2013, Trento, and MUUFL datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms current state-of-the-art classification techniques, thereby validating its effectiveness and applicability across diverse scenarios.