An image compression system for LEO satellites

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Data volumes produced by the next generation of earth observation sensors have increasedgreatly in recent years. Sensors are generating more data than can be easily storedonboard satellites and transmitted to the ground-stations.There are two strategies for solving this problem. The first is to process all imagesonboard the satellite, and only extract the useful or valuable information. The second isto use a compression algorithm to reduce the data volume.This thesis looks at both strategies and then focusses on an evaluation of the EmbeddedZerotree Wavelet (EZW) algorithm, a wavelet-based lossy image compression algorithm,as a solution to reduce the data volumes. Possible hardware implementation strategiesfor this algorithm are also explored. Finally, a suggested implementation of the EZWalgorithm is compared with the FlexWave-II system and with JPEG2000.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University