Littoral Combat Ship Unmanned Vehicle Sensor Data Compression Navy SBIR FY2014.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2014.1 Topic No.: N141-048 Topic Title: Littoral Combat Ship Unmanned Vehicle Sensor Data Compression Proposal No.: N141-048-0163 Firm: Physical Optics Corporation Applied Technologies Division 1845 West 205th Street Torrance, California 90501 Contact: Steve Jiang Phone: (310) 320-3088 Web Site: www.poc.com Abstract: To address the Navy need for LCS unmanned vehicle sensor data compression, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new image compression method operating at an improved rate. It is based on image analysis and new data organization strategies following wavelet transformation. The innovation in POC's Content Aware Image Compression (CAIC) system will enable the compression to be both bandwidth efficient and error tolerant. Therefore, this method offers a compression rate of at least 8:1 for visually lossless compression on sonar and camera images, which directly address the requirements for data transfer from RMMVs to LCSs. In Phase I, POC will demonstrate the feasibility of the new method based on compression efficiency and error resilience by designing, developing the key software components of the new compression approach, and testing on AN/AQS-20 sensor images and RMMV obstacle avoidance camera images. In Phase II, POC plans to develop a full-scale prototype on desktop as well as embedded systems. The operational evaluation of the proposed approach is also planned using peak signal-to-noise ratio of the decoded image. We plan to evaluate the algorithm for various compression bit rates and transmission over a wireless communication channel with a wide range of SNRs. Benefits: The new method offering higher compression rate for visually lossless image compression will benefit the government and organizations utilizing image communication or storage in any imagery system. Any military communication system for command and control can receive benefits from more efficient communication using this technology. Similar to Navy applications, the Air Force can also utilize this technology to send compressed images from board to the base over noisy and shallow channels with higher throughput which is often highly desired and mission critical. Similarly the Army can integrate this technology for timely team coordination on the battlefield and situation awareness. Private companies and consumers can use this technology to save network bandwidth and storage space and therefore to reduce economic and time costs. Return