Symmetrical modified dual tree complex wavelet transform for processing quadrature Doppler ultrasound signals

Abstract

Dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT), which is a shift invariant transform with limited redundancy, is an improved version of discrete wavelet transform. Complex quadrature signals are dual channel signals obtained from the systems employing quadrature demodulation. An example of such signals is quadrature Doppler signal obtained from blood flow analysis systems. Prior to processing Doppler signals using the DTCWT, directional flow signals must be obtained and then two separate DTCWT applied, increasing the computational complexity. In this study, in order to decrease computational complexity, a symmetrical modified DTCWT algorithm is proposed (SMDTCWT). A comparison between the new transform and the symmetrical phasing-filter technique is presented. Additionally denoising performance of SMDTCWT is compared with the DWT and the DTCWT using simulated signals. The results show that the proposed method gives the same output as the symmetrical phasing-filter method, the computational complexity for processing quadrature signals using DTCWT is greatly reduced and finally the SMDTCWT based denoising outperforms conventional DWT with same computational complexity. © 2011 IEEE. © 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.