Enhanced Image Capture and Transfer Capability

The quality and quantity of information directly available to command authorities is becoming a dominant factor in modern force projection. The demand for information in the form of digital imagery and real time video has exposed the severe bandwidth limitations of current data link resources. This demand is due to the recognition that “tip of the spear,” front line data is increasingly important to all command levels, even the National Command Authority (NCA). The ideal solution is to compress the data. Until now, the only compression options have been lossless techniques, which do not compress the data much, and lossy techniques (JPEG being the most common example) which destroy too much critical detail. The DRA Team designed an Enhanced Image Capture and Transfer system that uses a revolutionary compression algorithm to increase the information bandwidth of existing data links by at least 1000%. The tool interfaces with existing sensors and data links. The DRA-UC Team tested an unoptimized, early version on recorded digital video data from a UAV. The algorithm delivered 500% better performance. The DRA-UC Team accomplished this within the SBIR funding profile by leveraging extensive investment in the underlying core compression technology.