Terabytes Under Control: Real-Time Video Compression with AUTERA on a Vehicle Logger
- Automotives
- Autonomous Driving
- Data Logging
17:08min
Overview
How can massive amounts of data from camera streams be efficiently captured without storage and processing costs skyrocketing? The hands-on video on AUTERA real-time data compression addresses this challenge.
In modern data acquisition campaigns involving multiple vehicles and high-resolution sensors, raw data quickly consumes terabytes of storage and leads to long upload and processing times. AUTERA provides an efficient, practical solution here. It uses GPU-accelerated compression on the AUTERA AutoBox, allowing video data to be compressed live during recording. Using RTMaps and GStreamer integration, the workflow demonstrates how H.264 compression can be seamlessly integrated into an existing data acquisition pipeline with minimal configuration effort.
A realistic setup for autonomous driving featuring 11 cameras and 8 lidar sensors demonstrates the system’s capabilities. Data volume can be reduced to just a few percent of the raw data size while maintaining visually lossless quality. This significantly reduces the required SSD storage, accelerates data transfer, and improves the overall efficiency of the workflow.
This video is of particular interest to engineers and managers involved in ADAS/AD data acquisition, regardless of their industry. In addition to the automotive sector, companies in the agricultural, off-highway, and defense industries can also benefit from it. It offers a scalable, cost-effective approach to handle high-bandwidth sensor data without compromising its usability for development, testing, and validation.
Hosts
Björn Meyer
Project Manager Real-Time Software, dSPACE
Fabian Engemann
Field Application Engineer Global Sales - GS dSPACE GmbH
FAQ
Q1: What is AUTERA data compression used for?
A1: AUTERA data compression reduces the size of high-bandwidth sensor data, particularly camera streams, during data acquisition. It enables efficient storage and faster transmission in automotive test environments.
Q2: How does real-time compression work in AUTERA?
A2: Compression takes place directly on the in-vehicle logger using GPU acceleration. RTMaps and GStreamer components seamlessly integrate compression into the data pipeline.
Q3: Which compression formats are supported?
A3: AUTERA supports the H.264, H.265 (HEVC), and AV1 codecs. Users can select the most suitable format based on performance and quality requirements.
Q4: How much storage space can be saved with AUTERA compression?
A4: Compression reduces camera data to just a few percent of the original data size. For example, data rates can be reduced from gigabytes per second to manageable megabytes per second.
Q5: Does compression affect data quality?
A5: The compression shown in this video is visually lossless. This means that, for most technical purposes, the output appears identical to the original. However, it is not bit-for-bit identical to the raw data. It is also possible to implement fully lossless compression using other algorithms (see Question 3) without affecting data quality.
Q6: Is additional hardware required to decode compressed data?
A6: No, modern CPUs typically have built-in decoding capabilities for formats such as H.264. Developers do not require GPUs on their workstations.
