Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition: Image Data Analysis with White-noise Reflection

Abstract

During the last decade, Zhaohua Wu and Norden E. Huang announced a new improvement of the original Empirical Mode Decomposition method (EMD). Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition and its abbreviation EEMD represents a major improvement with great versatility and robustness in noisy data filtering. EEMD consists of sifting and making an ensemble of a white noise-added signal, and treats the mean value as the final true result. This is due to the use of a finite, not infinitesimal, amplitude of white noise which forces the ensemble to exhaust all possible solutions in the sifting process. These steps collate signals of different scale in a proper intrinsic mode function (IMF) dictated by the dyadic filter bank. As EEMD is a time–space analysis method, the added white noise is averaged out with a sufficient number of trials. Here, the only persistent part that survives the averaging process is the signal component (original data), which is then treated as the true and more physically meaningful answer. The main purpose of adding white noise was to provide a uniform reference frame in the time–frequency space. The added noise collates the portion of the signal of comparable scale in a single IMF. Image data taken as time series is a non-stationary and nonlinear process to which the new proposed EEMD method can be fitted out. This paper reviews the new approach of using EEMD and demonstrates its use on the example of image data analysis, making use of some advantages of the statistical characteristics of white noise. This approach helps to deal with omnipresent noise.