Novel characterization method of impedance cardiography signals using time-frequency distributions

The purpose of this document is to describe a methodology to select the most adequate time-frequency distribution (TFD) kernel for the characterization of impedance cardiography signals (ICG). The predominant ICG beat was extracted from a patient and was synthetized using time-frequency variant Fourier approximations. These synthetized signals were used to optimize several TFD kernels according to a performance maximization. The optimized kernels were tested for noise resistance on a clinical database. The resulting optimized TFD kernels are presented with their performance calculated using newly proposed methods. The procedure explained in this work showcases a new method to select an appropriate kernel for ICG signals and compares the performance of different time-frequency kernels found in the literature for the case of ICG signals. We conclude that, for ICG signals, the performance (P) of the spectrogram with either Hanning or Hamming windows (P¿=¿0.780) and the extended modified beta distribution (P¿=¿0.765) provided similar results, higher than the rest of analyzed kernels.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Blind Curvelet based Denoising of Seismic Surveys in Coherent and Incoherent Noise Environments

The localized nature of curvelet functions, together with their frequency and dip characteristics, makes the curvelet transform an excellent choice for processing seismic data. In this work, a denoising method is proposed based on a combination of the curvelet transform and a whitening filter along with procedure for noise variance estimation. The whitening filter is added to get the best performance of the curvelet transform under coherent and incoherent correlated noise cases, and furthermore, it simplifies the noise estimation method and makes it easy to use the standard threshold methodology without digging into the curvelet domain. The proposed method is tested on pseudo-synthetic data by adding noise to real noise-less data set of the Netherlands offshore F3 block and on the field data set from east Texas, USA, containing ground roll noise. Our experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve the best results under all types of noises (incoherent or uncorrelated or random, and coherent noise)

PHM survey: implementation of signal processing methods for monitoring bearings and gearboxes

The reliability and safety of industrial equipments are one of the main objectives of companies to remain competitive in sectors that are more and more exigent in terms of cost and security. Thus, an unexpected shutdown can lead to physical injury as well as economic consequences. This paper aims to show the emergence of the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) concept in the industry and to describe how it comes to complement the different maintenance strategies. It describes the benefits to be expected by the implementation of signal processing, diagnostic and prognostic methods in health-monitoring. More specifically, this paper provides a state of the art of existing signal processing techniques that can be used in the PHM strategy. This paper allows showing the diversity of possible techniques and choosing among them the one that will define a framework for industrials to monitor sensitive components like bearings and gearboxes

Current Frequency Spectral Subtraction and Its Contribution to Induction Machines' Bearings Condition Monitoring

International audienceInduction machines are widely used in industrial applications. Safety, reliability, efficiency, and performance are major concerns that direct the research activities in the field of electrical machines. Even though the induction machine is very reliable, many failures can occur such as bearing faults, air-gap eccentricity, and broken rotor bars. The challenge is, therefore, to detect them at an early stage in order to prevent breakdowns. In particular, stator current-based condition monitoring is an extensively investigated field for cost and maintenance savings. In this context, this paper deals with the assessment of a new stator current-based fault detection approach. Indeed, it is proposed tomonitor induction machine bearings by means of stator current spectral subtraction, which is performed using short-time Fourier transform or discrete wavelet transform. In addition, diagnosis index based on the subtraction residue energy is proposed. The proposed bearing faults condition monitoring approach is assessed using simulations, issued from a coupled electromagnetic circuits approach-based simulation tool, and experiments on a 0.75-kW induction machine test bed

Performance evaluation of the Hilbert–Huang transform for respiratory sound analysis and its application to continuous adventitious sound characterization

© 2016. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/The use of the Hilbert–Huang transform in the analysis of biomedical signals has increased during the past few years, but its use for respiratory sound (RS) analysis is still limited. The technique includes two steps: empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and instantaneous frequency (IF) estimation. Although the mode mixing (MM) problem of EMD has been widely discussed, this technique continues to be used in many RS analysis algorithms. In this study, we analyzed the MM effect in RS signals recorded from 30 asthmatic patients, and studied the performance of ensemble EMD (EEMD) and noise-assisted multivariate EMD (NA-MEMD) as means for preventing this effect. We propose quantitative parameters for measuring the size, reduction of MM, and residual noise level of each method. These parameters showed that EEMD is a good solution for MM, thus outperforming NA-MEMD. After testing different IF estimators, we propose Kay¿s method to calculate an EEMD-Kay-based Hilbert spectrum that offers high energy concentrations and high time and high frequency resolutions. We also propose an algorithm for the automatic characterization of continuous adventitious sounds (CAS). The tests performed showed that the proposed EEMD-Kay-based Hilbert spectrum makes it possible to determine CAS more precisely than other conventional time-frequency techniques.Postprint (author's final draft

Statistical Properties and Applications of Empirical Mode Decomposition

Signal analysis is key to extracting information buried in noise. The decomposition of signal is a data analysis tool for determining the underlying physical components of a processed data set. However, conventional signal decomposition approaches such as wavelet analysis, Wagner-Ville, and various short-time Fourier spectrograms are inadequate to process real world signals. Moreover, most of the given techniques require \emph{a prior} knowledge of the processed signal, to select the proper decomposition basis, which makes them improper for a wide range of practical applications. Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is a non-parametric and adaptive basis driver that is capable of breaking-down non-linear, non-stationary signals into an intrinsic and finite components called Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMF). In addition, EMD approximates a dyadic filter that isolates high frequency components, e.g. noise, in higher index IMFs. Despite of being widely used in different applications, EMD is an ad hoc solution. The adaptive performance of EMD comes at the expense of formulating a theoretical base. Therefore, numerical analysis is usually adopted in literature to interpret the behavior. This dissertation involves investigating statistical properties of EMD and utilizing the outcome to enhance the performance of signal de-noising and spectrum sensing systems. The novel contributions can be broadly summarized in three categories: a statistical analysis of the probability distributions of the IMFs and a suggestion of Generalized Gaussian distribution (GGD) as a best fit distribution; a de-noising scheme based on a null-hypothesis of IMFs utilizing the unique filter behavior of EMD; and a novel noise estimation approach that is used to shift semi-blind spectrum sensing techniques into fully-blind ones based on the first IMF. These contributions are justified statistically and analytically and include comparison with other state of art techniques