658 research outputs found
NoisyILRMA: Diffuse-Noise-Aware Independent Low-Rank Matrix Analysis for Fast Blind Source Extraction
In this paper, we address the multichannel blind source extraction (BSE) of a
single source in diffuse noise environments. To solve this problem even faster
than by fast multichannel nonnegative matrix factorization (FastMNMF) and its
variant, we propose a BSE method called NoisyILRMA, which is a modification of
independent low-rank matrix analysis (ILRMA) to account for diffuse noise.
NoisyILRMA can achieve considerably fast BSE by incorporating an algorithm
developed for independent vector extraction. In addition, to improve the BSE
performance of NoisyILRMA, we propose a mechanism to switch the source model
with ILRMA-like nonnegative matrix factorization to a more expressive source
model during optimization. In the experiment, we show that NoisyILRMA runs
faster than a FastMNMF algorithm while maintaining the BSE performance. We also
confirm that the switching mechanism improves the BSE performance of
NoisyILRMA.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for European Signal Processing
Conference 2023 (EUSIPCO 2023
Enhancing brain-computer interfacing through advanced independent component analysis techniques
A Brain-computer interface (BCI) is a direct communication system between a brain
and an external device in which messages or commands sent by an individual do not
pass through the brain’s normal output pathways but is detected through brain signals.
Some severe motor impairments, such as Amyothrophic Lateral Sclerosis, head
trauma, spinal injuries and other diseases may cause the patients to lose their muscle
control and become unable to communicate with the outside environment. Currently
no effective cure or treatment has yet been found for these diseases. Therefore using a
BCI system to rebuild the communication pathway becomes a possible alternative
solution. Among different types of BCIs, an electroencephalogram (EEG) based BCI
is becoming a popular system due to EEG’s fine temporal resolution, ease of use,
portability and low set-up cost. However EEG’s susceptibility to noise is a major
issue to develop a robust BCI. Signal processing techniques such as coherent
averaging, filtering, FFT and AR modelling, etc. are used to reduce the noise and
extract components of interest. However these methods process the data on the
observed mixture domain which mixes components of interest and noise. Such a
limitation means that extracted EEG signals possibly still contain the noise residue or
coarsely that the removed noise also contains part of EEG signals embedded.
Independent Component Analysis (ICA), a Blind Source Separation (BSS)
technique, is able to extract relevant information within noisy signals and separate the
fundamental sources into the independent components (ICs). The most common
assumption of ICA method is that the source signals are unknown and statistically
independent. Through this assumption, ICA is able to recover the source signals.
Since the ICA concepts appeared in the fields of neural networks and signal
processing in the 1980s, many ICA applications in telecommunications, biomedical
data analysis, feature extraction, speech separation, time-series analysis and data
mining have been reported in the literature. In this thesis several ICA techniques are
proposed to optimize two major issues for BCI applications: reducing the recording
time needed in order to speed up the signal processing and reducing the number of
recording channels whilst improving the final classification performance or at least
with it remaining the same as the current performance. These will make BCI a more
practical prospect for everyday use.
This thesis first defines BCI and the diverse BCI models based on different
control patterns. After the general idea of ICA is introduced along with some
modifications to ICA, several new ICA approaches are proposed. The practical work
in this thesis starts with the preliminary analyses on the Southampton BCI pilot
datasets starting with basic and then advanced signal processing techniques. The
proposed ICA techniques are then presented using a multi-channel event related
potential (ERP) based BCI. Next, the ICA algorithm is applied to a multi-channel
spontaneous activity based BCI. The final ICA approach aims to examine the
possibility of using ICA based on just one or a few channel recordings on an ERP
based BCI.
The novel ICA approaches for BCI systems presented in this thesis show that ICA
is able to accurately and repeatedly extract the relevant information buried within
noisy signals and the signal quality is enhanced so that even a simple classifier can
achieve good classification accuracy. In the ERP based BCI application, after multichannel
ICA the data just applied to eight averages/epochs can achieve 83.9%
classification accuracy whilst the data by coherent averaging can reach only 32.3%
accuracy. In the spontaneous activity based BCI, the use of the multi-channel ICA
algorithm can effectively extract discriminatory information from two types of singletrial
EEG data. The classification accuracy is improved by about 25%, on average,
compared to the performance on the unpreprocessed data. The single channel ICA
technique on the ERP based BCI produces much better results than results using the
lowpass filter. Whereas the appropriate number of averages improves the signal to
noise rate of P300 activities which helps to achieve a better classification. These
advantages will lead to a reliable and practical BCI for use outside of the clinical
laboratory
Enhanced independent vector analysis for audio separation in a room environment
Independent vector analysis (IVA) is studied as a frequency domain blind source separation method, which can theoretically avoid the permutation problem by retaining the dependency between different frequency bins of the same source vector while removing the dependency between different source vectors. This thesis focuses upon improving the performance of independent vector analysis when it is used to solve the audio separation problem in a room environment.
A specific stability problem of IVA, i.e. the block permutation problem, is identified and analyzed. Then a robust IVA method is proposed to solve this problem by exploiting the phase continuity of the unmixing matrix. Moreover, an auxiliary function based IVA algorithm with an overlapped chain type source prior is proposed as well to mitigate this problem.
Then an informed IVA scheme is proposed which combines the geometric information of the sources from video to solve the problem by providing an intelligent initialization for optimal convergence. The proposed informed IVA algorithm can also achieve a faster convergence in terms of iteration numbers and better separation performance. A pitch based evaluation method is defined to judge the separation performance objectively when the information describing the mixing matrix and sources is missing.
In order to improve the separation performance of IVA, an appropriate multivariate source prior is needed to better preserve the dependency structure within the source vectors. A particular multivariate generalized Gaussian distribution is adopted as the source prior. The nonlinear score function derived from this proposed source prior contains the fourth order relationships between different frequency bins, which provides a more informative and stronger dependency structure compared with the original IVA algorithm and thereby improves the separation performance.
Copula theory is a central tool to model the nonlinear dependency structure. The t copula is proposed to describe the dependency structure within the frequency domain speech signals due to its tail dependency property, which means if one variable has an extreme value, other variables are expected to have extreme values. A multivariate student's t distribution constructed by using a t copula with the univariate student's t marginal distribution is proposed as the source prior. Then the IVA algorithm with the proposed source prior is derived.
The proposed algorithms are tested with real speech signals in different reverberant room environments both using modelled room impulse response and real room recordings. State-of-the-art criteria are used to evaluate the separation performance, and the experimental results confirm the advantage of the proposed algorithms
Improved Feature Extraction, Feature Selection, and Identification Techniques That Create a Fast Unsupervised Hyperspectral Target Detection Algorithm
This research extends the emerging field of hyperspectral image (HSI) target detectors that assume a global linear mixture model (LMM) of HSI and employ independent component analysis (ICA) to unmix HSI images. Via new techniques to fully automate feature extraction, feature selection, and target pixel identification, an autonomous global anomaly detector, AutoGAD, has been developed for potential employment in an operational environment for real-time processing of HSI targets. For dimensionality reduction (initial feature extraction prior to ICA), a geometric solution that effectively approximates the number of distinct spectral signals is presented. The solution is based on the theory of the shape of the eigenvalue curve of the covariance matrix of spectral data containing noise. For feature selection, previously a subjective definition called significant kurtosis change was used to denote the separation between targets classes and non-target classes. This research presents two new measures, potential target signal to noise ratio (PT SNR) and max pixel score which computed for each of the ICA features to create a new two dimensional feature space where the overlap between target and non-target classes is reduced compared to the one dimensional kurtosis value feature space. Finally, after target feature selection, adaptive noise filtering, but with an iterative approach, is applied to the signals. The effect is a reduction in the power of the noise while preserving the power of the target signal prior to target identification to reduce false positive detections. A zero-detection histogram method is applied to the smoothed signals to identify target locations to the user. MATLAB code for the AutoGAD algorithm is provided
Enhanced independent vector analysis for speech separation in room environments
PhD ThesisThe human brain has the ability to focus on a desired sound source in the presence
of several active sound sources. The machine based method lags behind in mimicking
this particular skill of human beings. In the domain of digital signal processing this
problem is termed as the cocktail party problem. This thesis thus aims to further
the eld of acoustic source separation in the frequency domain based on exploiting
source independence. The main challenge in such frequency domain algorithms is the
permutation problem. Independent vector analysis (IVA) is a frequency domain blind
source separation algorithm which can theoretically obviate the permutation problem
by preserving the dependency structure within each source vector whilst eliminating
the dependency between the frequency bins of di erent source vectors. This thesis in
particular focuses on improving the separation performance of IVA algorithms which
are used for frequency domain acoustic source separation in real room environments.
The source prior is crucial to the separation performance of the IVA algorithm as it
is used to model the nonlinear dependency structure within the source vectors. An
alternative multivariate Student's t distribution source prior is proposed for the IVA
algorithm as it is known to be well suited for modelling certain speech signals due to
its heavy tail nature. Therefore the nonlinear score function that is derived from the
proposed Student's t source prior can better model the dependency structure within the
frequency bins and thereby enhance the separation performance and the convergence
speed of the IVA and the Fast version of the IVA (FastIVA) algorithms.
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A novel energy driven mixed Student's t and the original super Gaussian source prior
is also proposed for the IVA algorithms. As speech signals can be composed of many
high and low amplitude data points, therefore the Student's t distribution in the mixed
source prior can account for the high amplitude data points whereas the original su-
per Gaussian distribution can cater for the other information in the speech signals.
Furthermore, the weight of both distributions in the mixed source prior can be ad-
justed according to the energy of the observed mixtures. Therefore the mixed source
prior adapts the measured signals and further enhances the performance of the IVA
algorithm.
A common approach within the IVA algorithm is to model di erent speech sources with
an identical source prior, however this does not account for the unique characteristics
of each speech signal. Therefore dependency modelling for di erent speech sources
can be improved by modelling di erent speech sources with di erent source priors.
Hence, the Student's t mixture model (SMM) is introduced as a source prior for the
IVA algorithm. This new source prior can adapt according to the nature of di erent
speech signals and the parameters for the proposed SMM source prior are estimated
by deriving an e cient expectation maximization (EM) algorithm. As a result of this
study, a novel EM framework for the IVA algorithm with the SMM as a source prior is
proposed which is capable of separating the sources in an e cient manner.
The proposed algorithms are tested in various realistic reverberant room environments
with real speech signals. All the experiments and evaluation demonstrate the robustness
and enhanced separation performance of the proposed algorithms
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