Low bit rate transform coding for SAR raw data compression

In SAR applications huge amounts of data are collected and stored, and must be transmitted to the ground to be processed and archived. Then, appropriate techniques, which enable storage requirements and transmission bit stream reduction, have to be developed. In this paper we present a new approach for SAR raw data compression, based on a low bit rate transform coding technique, using wavelet transform and a non-uniform quantizer. Numerical experiments on ERS-1 data show that the presented method allows to reach better results respect to other techniques already applied to SAR raw data compression.