Very low rate compression of speckled SAR imagery

Synthetic Aperture Radars produce coherent, and speckled, high resolution images of the ground. Because modern systems can generate large amounts of imagery, there is substantial interest in applying image compression techniques to these products. In this paper, we examine the properties of speckled imagery relevant to the task of data compression. In particular, we demonstrate the advisability of compressing the speckle mean function rather than the literal image. The theory, methodology, and an example are presented.