Lossless Compression of Telemetry Data – Methodology and Results

Abstract

The continual advances in military system technologies compel the Test & Evaluation community to constantly mature, adapt and apply innovative methodologies and numerical methods. This progression requires a clear understanding of technique capabilities and limitations. With respect to telemetry, bandwidth limitations exist while higher data throughputs are desired. These higher throughput requirements can be attributed to factors such as increases in sensor sample rates and image resolutions. The primary objective of this technical paper is to provide details pertaining to a lossless compression algorithm and how it was applied to telemetry data prior to transmission as well as algorithm variants. Prior to selecting the algorithm used, controlled testing was performed on each of the algorithm variants to investigate the effects, if any, on achievable compression ratios. The results from this testing are also included.