Application of wavelets to image coding in an rf-link communication system
Chong-Sin Liou, Gary H. Conners, Joe Muczynski · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1995
The joint University of Rochester/Rochester Institute of Technology `Center for Electronic Imaging Systems' (CEIS) is designed to focus on research problems of interest to industrial sponsors, especially the Rochester Imaging Consortium. Compression of tactical images for transmission over an rf link is an example of this type of research project which is being worked on in collaboration with one of the CEIS sponsors, Harris Corporation/RF Communications. The Harris digital video imagery transmission system (DVITS) is designed to fulfill the need to transmit secure imagery between unwired locations at real-time rates. DVITS specializes in transmission systems for users who rely on hf equipment operating at the low end of the frequency spectrum. However, the inherently low bandwidth of hf combined with transmission characteristics such as fading and dropout severely restrict the effective throughput. The problem at designing a system such as DVITS is particularly challenging because of bandwidth and signal/noise limitations, and because of the dynamic nature of the operational environment. In this paper, a novel application of wavelets in tactical image coding is proposed to replace the current DCT compression algorithm in the DVITS system. THe effects of channel noise on the received image are determined and various design strategies combining image segmentation, compression, and error correction are described.