Application of fuzzy logic in finding the optimal filter in optoacoustics problems

Abstract

Denoising is an important step in the early stage of signal preprocessing in optoacoustic applications. The efficiency of such modern noise removal methods as wavelet or curvlet filtering depends significantly on the numerical combinations and forms of wavelet transform parameters, and the multidimensional extension of such filters is rather non-trivial. These issues are serious obstacle for using of these highly effective filters in the tasks of optoacoustic reconstruction, especially in real laboratorial or medical practice. The objective of our study was to find the optimal filter, convenient for use in laboratorian and medical practice, when the types of noise are a priori unknown, and the filter settings should not take much time. In the offered work spatial filters which have only one parameter of adjustment - the size of a window are considered. Three-dimensional extensions of such well-established denoising techniques, as mean filter, median filter, their adaptive variants (Wiener spatial filter and modified median filter), as well as iterative truncated arithmetic mean filter were analyzed. The proposed filters were tested on a test set that contains versions of Shepp-Logan's three-dimensional phantom with mixtures of Gaussian and alpha-stable noise, as well as speckle noise. The identification of the best filter for simultaneous suppression of these types of interference was carried out using the theory of fuzzy sets. In our tests, a modified median filter and an iterative truncated arithmetic mean filter were rated as the best choice when the goal is to minimize aberrations when noise is not known a priory.