Optimized Filtering and Compression System for an Earth Observation Satellite

Most earth observation satellites in their daily image processing routine operate using the “store and forward” mechanism; this mode of operation is not efficient due to the huge amount of data that has to be stored on-board the satellite (but cannot due to memory constraints). The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) 3U CubeSat named ZACUBE-02 will perform the filtering and compression processes of the images on-board. The focus of this research lies within the choice of the appropriate hardware that will be used to test the filtering and compression algorithm; the implementation of the hardware; the implementation of JPEG2000; and a detailed study on how to increase the compression ration without affecting the image quality as well as a suitable design and implementation. The chosen hardware will be used to implement the JPEG2000 using C programming language; the study on how to increase the compression ratio without affecting the image quality is proposed. By filtering and compressing images, the on-board storage memory constraints, the power constraints and the bandwidth constraints will be met resulting to the downlink transmission time being minimized. Filtering and compression of images find applications in photography, image/data storage and transmission where storage, bandwidth and power are restricted.