Title of Paper: Wavelet Compression of MODIS Satellite Images

Principal Author: Dr. Richard Ladner

Abstract: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data are collected from the Terra satellite at a rate of 11mb/s. These data are to be transmitted to earth, stored, and analyzed by various algorithms. One solution to reducing the bandwidth and storage needs for these data is to apply wavelet based compression. Wavelet-based compression algorithms provide a tradeoff between compression ratio and the error introduced in the reconstructed data. The question is which wavelet coders to use and what compression ratios to use to avoid distorting significantly the analysis algorithms' results. The wavelet-based compression algorithm "Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees" (SPIHT) seems to be very well suited to an FPGA hardware implementation and is known to have excellent compression performance. We present a controlled study that shows the effect of data compression on MODIS data. Cloud cover calculations can tolerate very large compression ratios. The correlation between frequency bands can be used to compress even more.