Speech Enhancement Using Hilbert Spectrum and Wavelet Packet Based Soft-Thresholding

Application of the spectral analysis technique Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) to hydroclimatic time series produces an orthogonal set of decreasing frequency Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) and a residual (or trend). As the EEMD algorithm is locally adaptive it is suitable for decomposing time series that appear non-stationary in terms of mean and variance: characteristics that are not uncommon in hydroclimatic series. EEMD utilises ensemble averaging to overcome the mode mixing problem observed in traditional Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD). Here EEMD is briefly outlined and issues relating to the calculation of the Hilbert spectrum from EEMD output are discussed. EEMD is then applied to three climatic indices relevant to Australian hydroclimatic variability, namely the Southern Oscillation Index, Indian Ocean Dipole mode index and the Tasman Sea Index. Analysis of these indices reveals EEMD is capable of identifying physical process signals. For example, the known spectral structure of the SOI is identified by the EEMD algorithm. It was observed during analysis of the Indian Ocean Dipole mode index that EMD post processing may introduce end effects previously minimised by the EEMD ensemble average. These effects may inflate existing features, or potentially introduce low frequency artefacts, though this danger can be mitigated through careful examination of the complete Hilbert spectrum. EEMD and Hilbert spectrum analysis of hydroclimatic data provides insight into long-term trends, dominant frequencies and changes in energy with time for time series that are usually problematic to analyse with traditional spectral analysis techniques. The spectral fingerprints of the climatic indices assessed here are used in a companion paper that looks for those fingerprints within Australian precipitation and temperature data (Srikanthan et al., 2011).

Electroencephalograph (EEG) is brain activity measurement technique that it is widely used by placing electrode on the scalp. The EEG recording signals are vulnerably contaminated by noise. Thus, it can lead to misperception in analyzing EEG signals. One of the noise that has major influence on the recorded EEG signals is ocular artifacts (OAs). In this paper, a new method to remove OAs automatically is proposed by combining between Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (CEEMD) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). CEEMD-ICA-OD removes OAs based on the concentration of noise that is calculated by calculating entropy for every CEEMD decomposition. Every selected decomposition of CEEMD will be used as input to the ICA method. Then, ICA will decompose selected CEEMD decomposition into independent components (ICs). Then, Chauvenet Criterion (CC) as Outlier Detection (OD) method is used to detect OAs pattern. Every detected OAs pattern will be eliminated by zeroing process on OAs pattern so that the EEG signal information remains secure. The proposed method were compared with Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD), Ensemble EMD (EEMD) and Complete EEMD (CEEMD) with zeroing ICA combination for every comparison method. The performance measure of the proposed method and the benchmark method is calculated by using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) to show the performance quality in eliminating OAs. The experiment results show that the proposed method is successfully removing OAs better than the other methods with RMSE value and SNR value are 0.2491 and -0.3449, respectively.

Various faults inevitably occur in mechanical systems and may result in unexpected failures. Hence, fault detection is critical to reduce unscheduled downtime and costly breakdowns. Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is an adaptive time-frequency domain signal processing method, potentially suitable for nonstationary and/or nonlinear processes. However, the EMD method suffers from several problems such as mode mixing, defined as intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with incorrect scales. In this paper, an ensemble noise-reconstructed EMD method is proposed to ameliorate the mode mixing problem and denoise IMFs for enhancing fault signatures. The proposed method defines the IMF components as an ensemble mean of EMD trials, where each trial is obtained by sifting signals that have been reconstructed using the estimated noise present in the measured signal. Unlike traditional denoising methods, the noise inherent in the input data is reconstructed and used to reduce the background noise. Furthermore, the reconstructed noise helps to project different scales of the signal onto their corresponding IMFs, instrumental in alleviating the mode mixing problem. Two critical issues concerned in the method, i.e., the noise estimation strategy and the number of EMD trials required for denoising are discussed. Furthermore, a comprehensive noise-assisted EMD method is proposed, which includes the proposed method and ensemble EMD (EEMD). Numerical simulations and experimental case studies on accelerometer data collected from an industrial shaving process are used to demonstrate and validate the proposed method. Results show that the proposed method can both detect impending faults and isolate multiple faults. Hence, the proposed method can act as a promising tool for mechanical fault detection.

An empirical signal separation algorithm for multicomponent signals based on linear time-frequency analysis

Background: Single-channel observed signal analysis based on independent component analysis (ICA) model belongs to the extremely underdetermined blind source separation (BBS) problem. Method: In order to extract the fault feature hidden in the single-channel measured signal from multi-stage gearbox, a joint approach of fault feature extraction based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and constrained independent component analysis (CICA) is proposed. The single-channel vibration fault signal is decomposed into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by EEMD, which can overcome the shortcomings of classical empirical mode decomposition (EMD). By computing the kurtosis and correlation coefficients of each IMF, we can select some suitable IMFs to construct a newly observed vector combined with the original signal, which meets the requirement of CICA algorithm. Finally, the suitable reference signal including faulty gear meshing frequency is generated, and the desired gear low frequency slight feature is extracted by CICA combined with envelope analysis. Conclusion: Through the experiment analysis of fault feature extraction with a missing tooth on the low speed gear pairs, the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method are verified. Keywords: Gearbox, single-channel measured signal, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), constrained independent component analysis (CICA), fault feature extraction, FFT spectrum.

Knock is one of the major constraints to improve the performance and thermal efficiency of spark ignition (SI) engines. It can also result in severe permanent engine damage under certain operating conditions. Based on the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), this paper proposes a new approach to determine the knock characteristics in SI engines. By adding a uniformly distributed and finite white Gaussian noise, the EEMD can preserve signal continuity in different scales and therefore alleviates the mode-mixing problem occurring in the classic empirical mode decomposition (EMD). The feasibilities of applying the EEMD to detect the knock signatures of a test SI engine via the pressure signal measured from combustion chamber and the vibration signal measured from cylinder head are investigated. Experimental results show that the EEMD-based method is able to detect the knock signatures from both the pressure signal and vibration signal, even in initial stage of knock. Finally, by comparing the application results with those obtained by short-time Fourier transform (STFT), Wigner–Ville distribution (WVD) and discrete wavelet transform (DWT), the superiority of the EEMD method in determining knock characteristics is demonstrated.

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is a powerful tool for the non-stationary and nonlinear signal analysis and has attracted considerable attention recently. However, one of primary problems existing in the EMD is the mode mixing, which makes the physical meaning of decomposition results obscure. The ensemble EMD (EEMD) is presented to alleviate the shortcoming. The EEMD is a noise-added method and can extract the components with truly physical meaning from the signal. Firstly, a simulation signal is used to test the performance of the EEMD; compared with the EMD, the EEMD illustrates the superiority over the EMD. Then, the fault diagnosis method based on the EEMD is applied to diagnose the faults of the gearbox with multiple faults and successfully extracts the multiple faults information from the collected signal. The results show that the fault diagnosis method based on the EEMD is a promising method for the fault diagnosis of gearboxes.

Application of the EEMD method for distinction and suppression of motion-induced noise in grounded electrical source airborne TEM system

This paper investigates the use of advance signal processing techniques for the classification of four common reciprocating compressor conditions. Non-stationary vibration signals from the compressor are decomposed based on WPT (Wavelet Packet Transform) and EMD (Empirical Mode Decomposition) and harmonic changes of the optimal components of each technique is used for condition monitoring and diagnostics of the machine. Performance comparison of WPT and EMD is done for the envelope analysis of the optimal wavelet packet and the IMF (Intrinsic Mode Function) component that can extract salient features of the four compressor conditions including one normal and three fault conditions (intercooler leakage, discharge valve leakage and the combination of intercooler and discharge valve leakage). Harmonic changes produced after envelope analysis of the best packet and IMF component are used for classification and results show that WPT technique is more robust and effective in fault classification compared to EMD.

Rotating shafts operating under complex loading conditions are susceptible to develop fatigue cracks at the localized stress concentration points. Fatigue cracks are the prime sources for catastrophic failures. Therefore, it is vital and challenging for the early fatigue crack detection to prevent costly machinery breakdowns. A rotor test rig with a facility of introducing stochastic loads on to the rotating shaft is designed and developed to induce fatigue crack on the shaft is utilized for this study. Accelerated fatigue tests are performed, along by introducing stochastic loads, on a shaft specimen seeded with circumferential V-notch configuration. The methodology for early crack detection is based on analyzing the steady-state vibration data acquired, till the shaft specimen develops fatigue crack, from various locations of the test rig using different sensors like miniature accelerometers, wireless telemetry strain gauge, and laser vibrometer. In the present study, signal processing tools like continuous wavelet transforms (CWT), Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT), and short-time Fourier transform (STFT) are employed for the early fatigue crack detection. Wavelet packet (WP) analysis is used to decompose the experimental vibration response data into narrow frequency band signals before the processing of CWT, HHT, and STFT analyses. In addition, these techniques are compared to evaluate their detection performance when employed directly on raw data and preprocessed data using WP analysis. Finally, this paper provides a detailed description and comprehensive selection of time-frequency techniques for the early fatigue crack detection.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is one of the medical devices that used for sleep disorder detection. Sleep disorder such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) often appears during sleep event. Since the OSAS patients have the difficulties to allow the airflow into the lung while inspiration, the EEG is applied to capture and record the brainwave of the patient. In this work, the Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) are used to process and analyze the accuracy and efficiency of the results. Both of these methods will decompose the EEG signal into a collection of Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF). In this paper, index orthogonality has been calculated to indicate the completeness of the decomposed signal with the original signal. The instantaneous frequency and Hilbert Spectrum based on both methods also employed by IMF to analyze and present the results in frequency-time distribution to determine the characteristic of the inherent properties of signal. Besides, Hilbert marginal spectrum has been applied to measure the total amplitude contribution from each frequency value. Finally, the results shown that the EEMD is better in solving mode mixing problem and better improvement over EMD method.

Fault degradation assessment of water hydraulic motor by impulse vibration signal with Wavelet Packet Analysis and Kolmogorov–Smirnov Test

Emotion feature extraction is the key to speech emotional recognition. And ensemble empirical mode decomposition(EEMD) is a newly developed method aimed at eliminating emotion mode mixing present in the original empirical mode decomposition(EMD). To evaluate the performance of this new method, this paper investigates the effect of a parameters pertinent to EEMD: speech emotional envelope. Firstly, a speaker emotional envelope features extraction based on EEMD is proposed in the paper. Using the piecewise power function in speech emotional envelope has a better effect in emotional identification. At the same time, the proposed technique has been utilized for classification of fo ur kinds of emotional(angry, happy, sad and neutral) speech signals. Emotional intrinsic mode functions(IMFe) are obtained by empirical mode decomposition on emotional speech signals, the fast fourier transform(FFT) of each intrinsic mode function is extracte d as the emotional feature coefficient which is used in speaker emotional identification applying by vector quantization. MATLAB is used to ca lculate the characteristic of emotional speech signals using empirical mode decomposition (EEMD). We obtain an emotional envelope by transforming the IMFe of emotional speech signals, and obtain a new method of emotion recognition according to different emotional envelop feature vectors. The results indicate the proposed method works well in speaker emotional identification.

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is an adaptive, data-driven algorithm that decomposes any time series into its intrinsic modes of oscillation, which can then be used in the calculation of the instantaneous phase and frequency. Ensemble EMD (EEMD), where the final EMD is estimated by averaging numerous EMD runs with the addition of noise, was an advancement introduced by Wu and Huang (2008) to try increasing the robustness of EMD and alleviate some of the common problems of EMD such as mode mixing. In this work, we test the performance of EEMD as opposed to normal EMD, with emphasis on the effect of selecting different stopping criteria and noise levels. Our results indicate that EEMD, in addition to slightly increasing the accuracy of the EMD output, substantially increases the robustness of the results and the confidence in the decomposition.

The acquisition of ballistocardiogram (BCG) signals during sleeping always presents all kinds of high-frequency noise, which causes the problem to extract effective signals. This article proposes a new method to extract heartbeat and respiration signals by combining the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and variational mode decomposition (VMD). Firstly, the sample entropy and energy difference ratio are used as the fitness function of WOA to optimize the penalty factor in the variational mode decomposition a and the number of decomposition layers K;Then the original signal was decomposed into multiple modal components (IMF) by optimized VMD; Finally, respiration and heartbeat signals were reconstructed, and their frequencies got calculated. Compared with the experimental results of empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD), the average respiratory rate error obtained by this algorithm is 0.097 and 0.013 lower than EMD and EEMD respectively, and the average heart rate error is 0.03 and 0.006 lower than EMD and EEMD respectively, it is proved that the algorithm can extract breath and heartbeat signals more effectively and accurately.