ADAPTIVE WAVELETS FOR LOSS-LESS HYPERSPECTRAL COMPRESSION

The penetration of hyperspectral sensing from either airborne or spaceborne platforms into both commercial and defense applications, has risen the need for efficient data transmission and storage. This efficiency can be provided by data compression technology that exhibits sufficient compression ratio at no or minimal loss of information and can perform the task in real or near real time. This Phase I SBIR is aimed at developing and assessing the feasibility of a practical hyperspectral imagery compression process that combines two key components; adaptive wavelet decomposition technology and spectral binning. The proposed compression technology will be capable of both lossless performance as well as controlled information loss to achieve higher compression ratios. The developed algorithms will make maximum utility of unique attributes of hyperspectral imagery in order to achieve high compression ratings. Since real or near real time performance is desired, the focus of the development will be on computationally efficient algorithms that can be implemented in real time on COTS or special purpose hardware (such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays). In addition to real-time, size, weight and power is of high interest for airborne and spaceborne platforms.