High Quality Image Compression for Rockets and Satellites

Installed communication systems for the more recent imagery rockets and satellites generally do not have sufficient data link bandwidth to allow imagery transmission. High quality image compression can alleviate this problem since 5 to 10 times more image data can be transmitted over existing communication systems. Researchers at Utah State University have developed a high quality image compression algorithm which has been denoted as "Statistically Lossless". This algorithm combines the good features of the well known vector quantization (VQ) compression and lossless compression. Results are presented in this paper in which different scientific imagery collection systems have been processed using the algorithm. In order to implement this algorithm, a CMOS VLSI chip has been produced which allows a VQ compression system to process 512 x 512 pixel images at a rate of 30 frames per second.