Sentinel-1 Flexible Dynamic Block Adaptive Quantizer

variable bit rate coding scheme designed for Sentinel-1 and named Flexible Dynamic Block Adaptive Quantizer (FDBAQ) is presented in this paper. FDBAQ technique adapts the number of quantization bits ac- cording to a local estimate of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver. Its performance is shown to be su- perior to the currently used BAQ compressor (1) in terms of SNR related to the compression rate. An overview of the design optimization, of the on-board and on-ground operations and of the system perfor- mances is provided. Results of simulations have been based on a 16-bit mosaic of reflectivity in C-band based on ENVISAT Global Monitoring data (2).