Onboard Algorithms for Data Prioritization and Summarization of Aerial Imagery

TBMG-15859

03/01/2013

Abstract
Content

Many current and future NASA missions are capable of collecting enormous amounts of data, of which only a small portion can be transmitted to Earth. Communications are limited due to distance, visibility constraints, and competing mission downlinks. Long missions and high-resolution, multispectral imaging devices easily produce data exceeding the available bandwidth. To address this situation, computationally efficient algorithms were developed for analyzing science imagery onboard the spacecraft. These algorithms autonomously cluster the data into classes of similar imagery, enabling selective downlink of representatives of each class, and a map classifying the terrain imaged rather than the full dataset, reducing the volume of the downlinked data. A range of approaches was examined, including k-means clustering using image features based on color, texture, temporal, and spatial arrangement.

Meta TagsDetails
Citation
"Onboard Algorithms for Data Prioritization and Summarization of Aerial Imagery," Mobility Engineering, March 1, 2013.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Mar 1, 2013
Product Code
TBMG-15859
Content Type
Magazine Article
Language
English