Flexible Dynamic Block Adaptive Quantization for Sentinel-1 SAR Missions

Author

Attema, Evert ; Cafforio, Ciro ; Gottwald, Michael ; Guccione, Pietro ; Guarnieri, Andrea Monti ; Rocca, Fabio ; Snoeij, Paul

Author_Institution

ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands

Volume

7

Issue

4

fYear

2010

Firstpage

766

Lastpage

770

Abstract

The letter introduces a novel quantizer suited for medium to high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems, like the forthcoming SENTINEL-1 SAR. The Flexible Dynamic Block Adaptive Quantization (FDBAQ) extends the concept of the Block Adaptive Quantization (BAQ), used in spaceborne SAR since the Magellan mission, by adaptively tuning the quantizer rate according to the local signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). A design is presented aiming to optimize the average bit-rate, while constraining the minimum SNR. FDBAQ optimized performance is then evaluated using backscatter maps derived from ENVIronment SATellite (ENVISAT) data.

Keywords

data compression; quantisation (signal); spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; average bit-rate; flexible dynamic block adaptive quantization; sentinel-1 SAR missions; spaceborne SAR; synthetic aperture radar systems; Backscatter; Bandwidth; Constraint optimization; Design optimization; Polarization; Quantization; Satellites; Signal to noise ratio; Spaceborne radar; Synthetic aperture radar; Block adaptive quantizer; data compression; quantization; synthetic aperture radar (SAR);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1545-598X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LGRS.2010.2047242

Filename

5473136