Sentinel-1 FDBAQ performance validation using TerraSAR-X data

Two Block Adaptive Quantization (BAQ) algorithms considered for implementation on-board Sentinel-1, the Entropy Constrained BAQ (ECBAQ) and the Flexible Dynamic BAQ (FDBAQ) are investigated with real data acquired by TerraSAR-X. The two algorithms are compared with respect to the resulting signal-to-quantization-noise ratio (SQNR) and the compression rate. The results confirm the improved performance of FDBAQ to be expected for Sentinel-1 compared to the more conventional ECBAQ.