Evaluation of a wavelet-based compression algorithm applied to the silicon drift detectors data of the ALICE experiment at CERN

This paper evaluates the performances of a wavelet-based compression algorithm applied to the data produced by the silicon drift detectors of the ALICE experiment at CERN. This compression algorithm is a general purpose lossy technique, in other words, its application could prove useful even on a wide range of other data reduction's problems. In particular the design targets relevant for our wavelet- based compression algorithm are the following ones: a high- compression coefficient, a reconstruction error as small as possible and a very limited execution time. Interestingly, the results obtained are quite close to the ones achieved by the algorithm implemented in the first prototype of the chip CARLOS, the chip that will be used in the silicon drift detectors readout chain.