Discrete linear canonical wavelet transform and its applications

The continuous generalized wavelet transform (GWT) which is regarded as a kind of time-linear canonical domain (LCD)-frequency representation has recently been proposed. Its constant-Q property can rectify the limitations of the wavelet transform (WT) and the linear canonical transform (LCT). However, the GWT is highly redundant in signal reconstruction. The discrete linear canonical wavelet transform (DLCWT) is proposed in this paper to solve this problem. First, the continuous linear canonical wavelet transform (LCWT) is obtained with a modification of the GWT. Then, in order to eliminate the redundancy, two aspects of the DLCWT are considered: the multi-resolution approximation (MRA) associated with the LCT and the construction of orthogonal linear canonical wavelets. The necessary and sufficient conditions pertaining to LCD are derived, under which the integer shifts of a chirp-modulated function form a Riesz basis or an orthonormal basis for a multi-resolution subspace. A fast algorithm that computes the discrete orthogonal LCWT (DOLCWT) is proposed by exploiting two-channel conjugate orthogonal mirror filter banks associated with the LCT. Finally, three potential applications are discussed, including shift sampling in multi-resolution subspaces, denoising of non-stationary signals, and multi-focus image fusion. Simulations verify the validity of the proposed algorithms.