A lossless compression algorithm of remote sensing image for space applications

A simple and adaptive lossless compression algorithm is proposed for remote sensing image compression,which includes integer wavelet transform and the Rice entropy coder. By analyzing the probability distribution of integer wavelet transform coefficients and the characteristics of Rice entropy coder,the divide and rule method is used for high-frequency sub-bands and low-frequency one.High-frequency sub-bands are coded by the Rice entropy coder,and low-frequency coefficients are predicted before coding. The role of predictor is to map the low-frequency coefficients into symbols suitable for the entropy coding. Experimental results show that the average Compression Ratio (CR) of our approach is about two,which is close to that of JPEG 2000. The algorithm is simple and easy to be implemented in hardware. Moreover,it has the merits of adaptability,and independent data packet. So the algorithm can adapt to space lossless compression applications.