A comparison of several algorithms for on-board SAR raw data reduction

This paper shows a comparison of different SAR (synthetic aperture radar) raw data reduction algorithms as applied to E-SAR data (experimental airborne SAR) and spaceborne ERS1 data. The Block Adaptive Quantizer (BAQ) and a Fuzzy Block Adaptive Quantizer (FBAQ) were selected and analysed. In addition, different algorithms based on a BAQ, the Discrete Cosine Block Adaptive Quantizer (DCT-BAQ), the Walsh-Hadamard Block Adaptive Quantizer (WHT-BAQ) and the Block Adaptive Vector Quantizer (BAVQ) mere examined. Signal-to-distortion noise ratios (SDNR) of 11.69 dB (BAQ), 8.00 dB (FBAQ), 2.09 dB (DCT-BAQ and) and 11.94 dB (BAVQ) for E-SAR data and 8.77 dB (BAQ), 5.17 dB (DCT-BAQ) and 9.56 dB (BAVQ) for ERS1 data for a data rate of 2 bits/sample were achieved with a reduction factor of about 3 for the E-SAR data and 2.5 for ERS1 data