General Discussion

The participants to the COMPARES workshop were asked to consider and reflect upon a set of key questions which relate to the future use of neurocomputing in remote sensing. These questions were as follows: i.Why use neural networks in the analysis and interpretation of remote sensing data ? Do they really offer advantages ? Are they really special ?ii.Classification has been the main application to date but has an impasse been reached ?iii.what this book tries not to doiv.Is it possible or necessary to build a “pan-European-classifier” based on a giant modular neural network ?v.Is special purpose hardware needed to operationally exploit neural networks in remote sensing ?vi.Should new/less common network models/architectures be explored ?vii.Are there any novel applications of neural networks in remote sensing ?viii.What future level of investment on R&D on neural networks in remote sensing is justified ?