Application of Improved Hybrid Compression Algorithm in GPS Data Compression

Abstract

In the paper we introduce a hybrid compression algorithm, which is the combination of Huffman algorithm and RLE algorithm, for compressing the GPS data. This algorithm acquires statistical characteristics of GPS data according to the NMEA0183 protocol, mixes Huffman algorithm and RLE algorithm to compress GPS data, to improve the coding efficiency and to restrain data expansion. Huffman algorithm has high compression rate on duplicated single-byte data while RLE algorithm has high compression rate on duplicated code segment. The flag bit is added in the process of encoding for encoding for the classification processing on GPS data in order to effectively identify the outputs of two kinds of algorithm when decoding and to ensure the complete decoding of compressed data. This improved hybrid compression algorithm is applied to local storage and 3G remote transmission of vehicle terminal GPS data, results show that the algorithm has clear improvement in compression performance of GPS data.