Image dequantization for hyperspectral lossy compression with convolutional neural networks

Significant work has been devoted to methods based on predictive coding for onboard compression of hyperspectral images. This is supported by the new CCSDS 123.0-B-2 recommendation for lossless and near-lossless compression. While lossless compression can achieve high throughput, it can only achieve limited compression ratios. The introduction of a quantizer and local decoder in the prediction loop allows to implement lossy compression with good rate-performance. However, the need to have a locally decoded version of a causal neighborhood of the current pixel under coding is a significant limiting factor in the throughput such encoder can achieve. In this work, we study the rate-distortion performance of a significantly simpler and faster onboard compressor based on prequantizing the pixels of the hyperspectral image and applying a lossless compressor (such as the lossless CCSDS CCSDS 123.0-B-2) to the quantized pixels. While this is suboptimal in terms of rate-distortion performance compared to having an in-loop quantizer, we compensate the lower quality with an on-ground post-processor based on modeling the distortion residual with a convolutional neural network. The task of the neural network is to learn the statistics of the quantization error and apply a dequantization model to restore the image

HOP Queue: Hyperspectral Onboard Processing Queue Demonstration

The HOP Queue (Hyperspectral Onboard Processing Queue) demonstration leverages emerging COTS AI accelerators and GPUs to perform on-board processing of hyperspectral imagery data, with the aim of providing near- real time conservation-oriented data and metrics from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). These include forest health, fire detection, and coastal water health. Phase 1 of this project is currently underway, including a completed lab demonstration of this technology and ongoing flight testing. The data from this mission will support Northrop Grumman’s enterprise “Technology for Conservation” campaign and will be provided to NASA’s Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) organization, as well as other conservation efforts

The CCSDS 123.0-B-2 Low-Complexity Lossless and Near-Lossless Multispectral and Hyperspectral Image Compression Standard: A comprehensive review

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) published the CCSDS 123.0-B-2, “Low- Complexity Lossless and Near-Lossless Multispectral and Hyperspectral Image Compression” standard. This standard extends the previous issue, CCSDS 123.0-B-1, which supported only lossless compression, while maintaining backward compatibility. The main novelty of the new issue is support for near-lossless compression, i.e., lossy compression with user-defined absolute and/or relative error limits in the reconstructed images. This new feature is achieved via closed-loop quantization of prediction errors. Two further additions arise from the new near lossless support: first, the calculation of predicted sample values using sample representatives that may not be equal to the reconstructed sample values, and, second, a new hybrid entropy coder designed to provide enhanced compression performance for low-entropy data, prevalent when non lossless compression is used. These new features enable significantly smaller compressed data volumes than those achievable with CCSDS 123.0-B-1 while controlling the quality of the decompressed images. As a result, larger amounts of valuable information can be retrieved given a set of bandwidth and energy consumption constraints

The SURPRISE demonstrator: a super-resolved compressive instrument in the visible and medium infrared for Earth Observation

While Earth Observation (EO) data has become ever more vital to understanding the planet and addressing societal challenges, applications are still limited by revisit time and spatial resolution. Though low Earth orbit missions can achieve resolutions better than 100 m, their revisit time typically stands at several days, limiting capacity to monitor dynamic events. Geostationary (GEO) missions instead typically provide data on an hour-basis but with spatial resolution limited to 1 km, which is insufficient to understand local phenomena. In this paper, we present the SURPRISE project - recently funded in the frame of the H2020 programme – that gathers the expertise from eight partners across Europe to implement a demonstrator of a super-spectral EO payload - working in the visible (VIS) - Near Infrared (NIR) and in the Medium InfraRed (MIR) and conceived to operate from GEO platform -with enhanced performance in terms of at-ground spatial resolution, and featuring innovative on-board data processing and encryption functionalities. This goal will be achieved by using Compressive Sensing (CS) technology implemented via Spatial Light Modulators (SLM). SLM-based CS technology will be used to devise a super-resolution configuration that will be exploited to increase the at-ground spatial resolution of the payload, without increasing the number of detector’s sensing elements at the image plane. The CS approach will offer further advantages for handling large amounts of data, as is the case of superspectral payloads with wide spectral and spatial coverage. It will enable fast on-board processing of acquired data for information extraction, as well as native data encryption on top of native compression. SURPRISE develops two disruptive technologies: Compressive Sensing (CS) and Spatial Light Modulator (SLM). CS optimises data acquisition (e.g. reduced storage and transmission bandwidth requirements) and enables novel onboard processing and encryption functionalities. SLM here implements the CS paradigm and achieves a super-resolution architecture. SLM technology, at the core of the CS architecture, is addressed by: reworking and testing off-the-shelf parts in relevant environment; developing roadmap for a European SLM, micromirror array-type, with electronics suitable for space qualification. By introducing for the first time the concept of a payload with medium spatial resolution (few hundreds of meters) and near continuous revisit (hourly), SURPRISE can lead to a EO major breakthrough and complement existing operational services. CS will address the challenge of large data collection, whilst onboard processing will improve timeliness, shortening time needed to extract information from images and possibly generate alarms. Impact is relevant to industrial competitiveness, with potential for market penetration of the demonstrator and its components

Remote Sensing Data Compression

A huge amount of data is acquired nowadays by different remote sensing systems installed on satellites, aircrafts, and UAV. The acquired data then have to be transferred to image processing centres, stored and/or delivered to customers. In restricted scenarios, data compression is strongly desired or necessary. A wide diversity of coding methods can be used, depending on the requirements and their priority. In addition, the types and properties of images differ a lot, thus, practical implementation aspects have to be taken into account. The Special Issue paper collection taken as basis of this book touches on all of the aforementioned items to some degree, giving the reader an opportunity to learn about recent developments and research directions in the field of image compression. In particular, lossless and near-lossless compression of multi- and hyperspectral images still remains current, since such images constitute data arrays that are of extremely large size with rich information that can be retrieved from them for various applications. Another important aspect is the impact of lossless compression on image classification and segmentation, where a reasonable compromise between the characteristics of compression and the final tasks of data processing has to be achieved. The problems of data transition from UAV-based acquisition platforms, as well as the use of FPGA and neural networks, have become very important. Finally, attempts to apply compressive sensing approaches in remote sensing image processing with positive outcomes are observed. We hope that readers will find our book useful and interestin

High-Performance Lossless Compression of Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Scenes Based on Spectral Decorrelation

The capacity of the downlink channel is a major bottleneck for applications based on remotesensing hyperspectral imagery (HSI). Data compression is an essential tool to maximize the amountof HSI scenes that can be retrieved on the ground. At the same time, energy and hardware constraintsof spaceborne devices impose limitations on the complexity of practical compression algorithms.To avoid any distortion in the analysis of the HSI data, only lossless compression is considered in thisstudy. This work aims at finding the most advantageous compression-complexity trade-off withinthe state of the art in HSI compression. To do so, a novel comparison of the most competitive spectraldecorrelation approaches combined with the best performing low-complexity compressors of thestate is presented. Compression performance and execution time results are obtained for a set of47 HSI scenes produced by 14 different sensors in real remote sensing missions. Assuming onlya limited amount of energy is available, obtained data suggest that the FAPEC algorithm yields thebest trade-off. When compared to the CCSDS 123.0-B-2 standard, FAPEC is 5.0 times faster andits compressed data rates are on average within 16% of the CCSDS standard. In scenarios whereenergy constraints can be relaxed, CCSDS 123.0-B-2 yields the best average compression results of allevaluated methods

Statistical Atmospheric Parameter Retrieval Largely Benefits from Spatial-Spectral Image Compression

The Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) is flying on board of the Metop satellite series, which is part of the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). Products obtained from IASI data represent a significant improvement in the accuracy and quality of the measurements used for meteorological models. Notably, IASI collects rich spectral information to derive temperature and moisture profiles –among other relevant trace gases–, essential for atmospheric forecasts and for the understanding of weather. Here, we investigate the impact of near-lossless and lossy compression on IASI L1C data when statistical retrieval algorithms are later applied. We search for those compression ratios that yield a positive impact on the accuracy of the statistical retrievals. The compression techniques help reduce certain amount of noise on the original data and, at the same time, incorporate spatial-spectral feature relations in an indirect way without increasing the computational complexity. We observed that compressing images, at relatively low bitrates, improves results in predicting temperature and dew point temperature, and we advocate that some amount of compression prior to model inversion is beneficial. This research can benefit the development of current and upcoming retrieval chains in infrared sounding and hyperspectral sensors

Advanced methods and deep learning for video and satellite data compression

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Iterative enhanced multivariance products representation for effective compression of hyperspectral images.

Effective compression of hyperspectral (HS) images is essential due to their large data volume. Since these images are high dimensional, processing them is also another challenging issue. In this work, an efficient lossy HS image compression method based on enhanced multivariance products representation (EMPR) is proposed. As an efficient data decomposition method, EMPR enables us to represent the given multidimensional data with lower-dimensional entities. EMPR, as a finite expansion with relevant approximations, can be acquired by truncating this expansion at certain levels. Thus, EMPR can be utilized as a highly effective lossy compression algorithm for hyper spectral images. In addition to these, an efficient variety of EMPR is also introduced in this article, in order to increase the compression efficiency. The results are benchmarked with several state-of-the-art lossy compression methods. It is observed that both higher peak signal-to-noise ratio values and improved classification accuracy are achieved from EMPR-based methods