Relevant modes selection method based on Spearman correlation coefficient for laser signal denoising using empirical mode decomposition

Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is a recently proposed nonlinear and nonstationary laser signal denoising method. A noisy signal is broken down using EMD into oscillatory components that are called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Thresholding-based denoising and correlation-based partial reconstruction of IMFs are the two main research directions for EMD-based denoising. Similar to other decomposition-based denoising approaches, EMD-based denoising methods require a reliable threshold to determine which IMFs are noise components and which IMFs are noise-free components. In this work, we propose a new approach in which each IMF is first denoised using EMD interval thresholding (EMD-IT), and then a robust thresholding process based on Spearman correlation coefficient is used for relevant modes selection. The proposed method tackles the problem using a thresholding-based denoising approach coupled with partial reconstruction of the relevant IMFs. Other traditional denoising methods, including correlation-based EMD partial reconstruction (EMD-Correlation), discrete Fourier transform and wavelet-based methods, are investigated to provide a comparison with the proposed technique. Simulation and test results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method when compared with the other methods.