The Challenge
MBDA was developing a compression codec for transmitting time-critical imagery and video over degraded communications links. Unlike conventional codecs, which optimise for bandwidth efficiency or image quality, this technology was designed for resilience, ensuring usable imagery could still be received despite transmission errors caused by interference, weather or jamming.
The team had searched the academic literature and found nothing comparable. They believed relevant solutions were likely to exist beyond traditional defence suppliers, in adjacent commercial sectors addressing similar resilience challenges for time-critical imagery. The question was whether comparable codecs already existed outside MBDA's existing field of view, and how their capabilities compared with MBDA's own approach.
This created a blind spot. Without a structured view of the commercial landscape, it was difficult to identify potential partners, assess competing approaches or confidently position MBDA's own technology.
The Solution
Outsmart designed an Ecosystem Scouting study to map the global landscape of image and video compression codecs capable of maintaining usable imagery under extreme bit error rates (high levels of transmission errors).
The study combined a bespoke technology taxonomy with a multidisciplinary team of practising scientists and engineers, whose expertise spanned wireless communications, information theory, defence electronics and adjacent commercial applications. Rather than following conventional market categories, the research was organised around MBDA's technical requirements, enabling a targeted search across defence and adjacent sectors including surveillance, autonomous systems, search and rescue and industrial imaging.
Each organisation was assessed against a framework covering resilience performance, transmission approach, application domain, technology maturity and deployment environment. Findings were reviewed iteratively with MBDA, allowing the search to be refined while enabling solutions from diverse sectors to be compared on a like-for-like basis.
“I have been very impressed with the market analysis undertaken by Outsmart Insight, which has been extremely professional and collaborative, meeting our requirements and ultimately the delivery of quality output to a tight timescale. Thank you team.”
— Andy Sherriff, Head of Image Processing UK, MBDA
Following the initial landscape assessment, MBDA selected a small number of companies for further investigation to explore partnership opportunities. Outsmart and the client team jointly prioritised these organisations, ensuring subsequent work focused on those with the greatest potential.
After agreeing on a detailed set of technical, commercial and strategic questions with the client, Outsmart's experts interviewed company founders and CTOs. These discussions provided insights beyond publicly available information, including technical capability, product maturity, commercial positioning and openness to future defence partnerships.
Technology Highlights
- A UK player offering a hierarchical, tree-structured codec using a "reverse pyramid" architecture that progressively reconstructs image detail, reducing cascading transmission errors while enabling regions of interest to be extracted under degraded link conditions.
- A Canadian player dynamically adapting transmission parameters to changing network conditions, maintaining image quality during substantial packet loss.
- A Japanese player developing a proprietary narrowband video codec using peak-rate control, region-of-interest sharpening and a "snapshot mode" that alternates between highly compressed ultra-low-frame-rate video and high-resolution still images.
The Value and Impact
The Ecosystem Scouting study provided MBDA with the first structured view of a fragmented global ecosystem that had previously been difficult to navigate. The work distinguished genuine competitors from adjacent technologies, helped validate where MBDA's own codec remained differentiated, and identified commercially relevant organisations for future collaboration.
Primary research interviews with founders and technology leaders within shortlisted companies provided insights beyond publicly available information, including technology maturity, commercial strategy and openness to defence partnership, giving MBDA greater confidence in subsequent build, buy and partner decisions.
