Image Transmission via Spread Spectrum Techniques

The transmission of standard commercial television images from a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV) to a distant observer requires a large bandwidth channel in order to protect the video information against jamming and interference. This protection can be gained from spread spectrum techniques. In many RPV situations, however, the available channel bandwidth is barely sufficient or is insufficient to transmit the television signal directly. In these cases the video information can be transmitted only if the redundancy present in the original images is greatly reduced. The report discusses the feasibility of redundancy removal at real time rates with small, lightweight, low power hardware suitable for the ARPA RPV transmission. It is desirable to be able to vary the amount of redundancy removed to permit the observer to select from the available tradeoffs of resolution, bandwidth, scan rate, and jamming environment.