Underwater image compression using the wavelet transform

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) have gained considerable attention over the years for exploration of the ocean environment. An AUV which is equipped with an underwater video camera and tethered by a fiber optic cable is capable of providing invaluable visual data for ocean research. To extend the exploration range of such AUV´s, an idea has been proposed to capture and process underwater video on-board the vehicle then transmit it acoustically to a remote site via an underwater acoustic channel. Video applications process large volumes of data and in order for an underwater channel to accommodate the transmission of this data, extremely high compression is required. The work presented here addresses this massive compression problem by employing the wavelet decomposition in conjunction with vector quantization for coding still underwater images