Robust video coding for underwater transmission

A robust image compression algorithm has been developed for use in underwater video transmission. The hostile nature of the medium leads to high error rates, normally requiring a severe overhead in terms of forward error correction bits. The new algorithm reduces this requirement by means of error resilient organisation of the compressed image data and variable rate protection coding. Simulation results for the standard 512x512 Lena image are presented as well as practical results from recent sea-trials.