Frequency domain raw SAR data compression for multi-mode satellite SAR instruments

Inhalt:
This paper addresses a novel frequency-domain raw SAR data compression concept that outperforms conventional methods based on Block Adaptive Quantisation (BAQ). The results of extensive compression performance and image quality evaluations are presented. It is shown that for an advanced multi-mode satellite SAR instrument the average compression ratio can be doubled as compared to BAQ. Space borne implementation is feasible due to the advent of advanced space FPGA's and ASIC's including the powerFFT, a fast FFT-oriented DSP.