VERY LOW BIT-RATE ERROR-RESILIENT VIDEO COMMUNICATION

The technology for reliable real-time video communication between air cockpit to base, cockpit to cockpit and missiles to cockpit is of great importance in modern electronic warfare. Since the channel bandwidth for such a video-link is highly restricted due to limited transmission power and security require- ment, efficient video compression technique is essential. It is also desirable to incorporate error control and recovery mechanism for data protection and to allow real-time operations. Thus, there are three areas requiring technological breakthrough: data reduction, coding speed and error resiliency. Novel approaches for solving these problems and integration of different modules into a system are detailed in this proposal. This proposal consists of work plans for both Phase I and Phase I Option. In Phase 1, we will investigate state-of-the-art low bit rate video coding, which is mainly based on the H.263 standard, and develop a fast motion estimation algorithm for real-time processing. We will also focus on incorporating error control and recovery technology into the video coding scheme so that it is robust to the channel errors in wireless communication. In Phase I Option, we will establish a wireless communication channel model and perform extensive simulation and conduct a performance evaluation. The same technology also finds many commercial applications, including multimedia transmission, teleconferencing, videophone, high-definition TV (HDTV), and CD-ROM storage. We plan to utilize the work in Phase I to develop a prototype hardware for handling real video test data in Phase 11, and demonstrate the developed hardware in existing Navy tactical aircraft and transfer the technology to commercial applications such as mobile multimedia communication and cellular videophone in Phase 111.