The Role of Digital Image Processing in Telecommunications

Abstract

Image processing involves the use of techniques developed for manipulating images with the objective of enhancing some aspect of interest in the image. The type of image depends on the sensor used to capture the image, ie. camera, spectral, radar, sonar, thermal. This paper considers the role of image processing in applications in telecommunications involving the acquisition and transmission of images from large distances. These images are processed using algorithms developed on computers to enable the interpretation of the data. Such applications include images of distant planets transmitted by space probes, remote sensing applications of which there are several specialized areas such as monitoring and exploration of the earth’s natural resources (eg. vegetation, oceanography, mineral exploration, atmospheric ozone layer etc.), weather forecasting, map making, military intelligence. Image processing vastly adds to the effective use of these applications. Cellular phones now have the capability to capture and transmit images. Though it would require substantially more processing power than is present in cellular phones now, it is suggested given the developments in information technology, it should become possible to build lip reading capability and speech recognition capability in cellular phones. The cellular phone has all the hardware requirements for acquisition of both the audio and visual data. Designing lip reading capability in cell phones could make it possible for the mute persons to communicate with others via cell phone. Combined with speech recognition, this would enable voice communication to be made over low bandwidth channels. However, the present state of audio and visual speech recognition technology will need to attain significantly better performance than what is achievable today. This paper reviews the applications of image processing, its implementation, and image processing algorithms.