Controlled isolation of prior onboard FDBAQ compression

Determine whether prior onboard compression shifts the classical compression frontier by comparing unencoded AFRL Gotcha radar data with the same data after simulated FDBAQ compression.

Background

The Sentinel-1 data used for the primary study had already undergone onboard FDBAQ compression, while the AFRL Gotcha data were effectively uncompressed. The two datasets produced different classical frontier rates, but they also differed in sensor, geometry, scene, and detection statistics.

A comparison between unencoded Gotcha data and the same data subjected to simulated FDBAQ would hold those factors constant and isolate whether prior onboard quantization itself changes the achievable compression frontier. This controlled comparison was not performed.

References

The controlled version of the question, comparing $R_c$ on unencoded Gotcha data against the same data after simulated FDBAQ, would isolate the re-compression variable alone; it remains untested and is proposed future work (Section~\ref{sec:conclusion}).

— Task-Based Evaluation of Raw Radar Data Compression: A Pre-Registered Study of Where Classical Codecs Fail to Preserve Target Detection, and Why  (2608.17269 - Chrabot, 18 Aug 2026) in Section 5.1, The classical frontier; Section Limitations; Section Conclusion