Wednesday, 12 January 2005: 4:15 PM
Flexibility and Adaptability of the Low Rate Infornation Transmission System
Poster PDF
(320.7 kB)
The NOAA/NESDIS Low Rate Information Transmission (LRIT) Processing System was implemented under the Computer Sciences Corporation's (CSC) Central Satellite Data Processing contract to replace the current Weather Facsimile (WEFAX) processing system. The LRIT Product Processing System (LPPS) lends itself nicely to incorporating new and better technology, as they become available, to improve product quality and delivery. The flexibility and adaptability of the LPPS can best be understood in the context of adding new data to the LRIT product suite, and/or by incorporating new technology to improve product distribution. The LRIT format is flexible enough to allow for mission specific headers that can be used to define new data types. This is the case with the GOES Data Collection System (DCS) data that is currently being transmitted via the LRIT satellite link, and will be the case with Emergency Management Weather Information Network (EMWIN) data. Additionally, the LRIT format is flexible enough to allow for the inclusion of new technology, such as the incorporation of various types of data compression. The LPPS is currently utilizing lossy JPEG compression, as described in the CGMS LRIT/HRIT Global Specification, but the LRIT development team is analyzing JPEG2000, and ZIP compression for incorporation into the LPPS, and has already incorporated Rice compression to give the LRIT system a lossless compression scheme to complement the current lossy scheme. As new data and technology becomes available, the LRIT development team will make every effort to incorporate those technologies into a better LRIT product for the user community. This paper will focus on improving distribution of LRIT products through the use of various compression schemes, such as Rice, JPEG, JPEG200, and ZIP compression.
Supplementary URL: