HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGE COMPRESSION MODULE (HICM)

Hyperspectral imaging sensors offer utility for a wide range of commercial and defense applications. These instruments image a scene over a large number of spectral bands to form a complete reflectance spectrum. Such a system generates prodigious amounts of information. The HYDICE sensor, for example, generates data at over 5.8 Mbytes/s. An hour of collection provides a spectral/spatial hypercube of over 20 GBytes of data. Hyperspectral instruments now being planned will significantly increase these numbers. It is challenging to store or transmit the data. Data compression can alleviate this problem.Having recently finished a program to compress hyperspectral interferomentric data. Systems & Processes Engineering Corporation proposes applying this expereince with state-of-the-art compression to hyperspectral imagery and defining requirements to design and develop a compression module to interface with a broad family of hyperspectral imaging sensors. The real-time compression module will provide frame capture, selectable lossless or lossy data compression, forward error correction, and modulation and will be able to telemetry the data over existing channel bandwidths. Phase I will investigate the suitability of compression and decompression algorithms and will develop optimal forms of lossless and lossy compression. Phase II will design and fabricate a prototype module capable of supporting flight-tests.