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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Biomedical Signal Processing and Control

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bspc

Modified dual tree complex wavelet transform for processing quadrature signals
Gorkem Serbes a , Nizamettin Aydin b,∗
a
Mechatronics Engineering Department, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul 34349, Turkey
b
Computer Engineering Department, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul 34349, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT) is a shift invariant transform with limited redundancy.
Received 30 April 2010 Complex quadrature signals are dual channel signals obtained from the systems employing quadrature
Received in revised form demodulation. An example of such signals is quadrature Doppler signal obtained from blood flow analysis
11 September 2010
systems. Prior to processing Doppler signals using the DTCWT, directional flow signals must be obtained
Accepted 23 September 2010
and then two separate DTCWT applied, increasing the computational complexity. In order to decrease
Available online xxx
computational complexity, a modified DTCWT algorithm is proposed. A comparison between the new
transform and the phasing-filter technique is presented. The results show that the proposed method
Keywords:
Complex wavelets
gives the same output as the phasing-filter method and the computational complexity for processing
Wavelet transform quadrature signals using DTCWT is greatly reduced.
Doppler © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Denoising

1. Introduction crete wavelet transform (MDTCWT), which is capable of mapping

Many measurement systems employ quadrature demodulation
techniques at the detection stage. For example in Doppler ultra-
sound systems used in blood flow analysis, the incoming signal
from an ultrasonic transducer is multiplied by the transmitted and
90 degree phase-shifted version of the transmitted signals [1]. After
low pass filtering, in-phase and quadrature phase components of
the audio Doppler signal are obtained. Flow direction is encoded
in the phase relationship between in-phase and quadrature phase
channels. A number of methods exist for extracting directional
information from the quadrature Doppler signals [2,3]. Fast Fourier
transform (FFT), which maps directional information in the fre-
quency domain, is widely used for the analysis of Doppler signals
[2]. Similarly, a complex continuous wavelet transform algorithm,
which maps directional information in the scale domain, was intro-
duced in [4]. In the case of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT),
which is becoming a popular tool for analysis of biological sig-
nals, an algorithm mapping directional signals in the scale domain
during analysis does not exist. Although there exists a complex
DWT algorithm called dual tree complex discrete wavelet trans-
form (DTCWT) [5,6], it does not provide directional signal decoding
during analysis. In this paper, a modified dual tree complex dis-
directional signals at the transform output, is presented.
2. Complex quadrature signals
Complex quadrature signals are obtained at the detection stage
of the systems employing quadrature demodulation technique.
Quadrature signals are dual channel signals. As an example, output
of most commercial Doppler ultrasound systems is in quadrature
format. A quadrature Doppler signal can be assumed as a complex
signal, in which the real and imaginary parts can be represented
as the Hilbert transform (HT) of each other. Assuming that the dis-
crete form of the signal definition is used and the Doppler signal
pair is band limited to fs /2, where fs is the sampling frequency of
the system, a quadrature Doppler signal can be modeled as
y(n) = D(n) + jQ (n) (1)
where D(n) is in-phase and Q(n) is quadrature-phase components
of the signal. A generalized D(n) and Q(n) can also be represented
in terms of the directional signals as
D(n) = ±sf (n) ± H[sr (n)] (2)
Q (n) = ±H[sf (n)] ± sr (n) (3)

∗ Corresponding author. Present address: Yildiz Technical University, Computer
Engineering Department, Besiktas 34349, Istanbul, Turkey.
Tel.: +90 212 3832417; fax: +90 212 2587489.
E-mail addresses: gorkem.serbes@bahcesehir.edu.tr (G. Serbes),
naydin@yildiz.edu.tr (N. Aydin).
where sf (n) and sr (n) represent forward and reverse signals respec-
tively and H[] stands for the HT. The information concerning flow
direction is encoded in the phase relationship between D(n) and
Q(n). Although there are a number of methods for extracting direc-
tional signals from the quadrature signals, the phasing-filtering
technique (PFT), which is based on HT, is most widely used method

1746-8094/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.bspc.2010.09.007

Please cite this article in press as: G. Serbes, N. Aydin, Modified dual tree complex wavelet transform for processing quadrature signals, Biomed.
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D(n) HILBERT + yf (n)
TRANSFORM
+
- Conventionally, prior to applying the DTCWT to the quadrature
Q(n) + yr(n)
DELAY
FILTER
Fig. 1. Asymmetrical implementation of the PFT algorithm using FIR Hilbert trans-
form.
[2]. Therefore in this work, the reconstructed directional outputs of
the MDTCWT are compared with the outputs of the PFT.
Considering the real time case, an asymmetrical implementa-
tion of the PFT algorithm shown in Fig. 1 usually utilizes a time
domain HT filter and a delay filter. The delay filter introduces a
time delay that equals the time delay introduced by the FIR (finite
impulse response) HT filter. If the signals defined by (2) and (3) are
applied to the PFT algorithm given in Fig. 1, the following results
are obtained:
Ignoring the time delays introduced by the digital filters, the HT
of D(n) is
H[D(n)] = H[±sf (n) ± H[sr (n)]] = H[±sf (n)] ± H[H[sr (n)]]
= ±H[sf (n)] ± (−sr (n)) = ±H[sf (n)] ∓ sr (n)
After addition and subtraction of (3) and (4), the separated out-
puts (forward and reverse signals) can be obtained:
yf (n) = Q (n) + H[D(n)] = {±H[sf (n)] ± sr (n)} + {±H[sf (n)] ∓ sr (n)}
= ±H[sf (n)] ± H[sf (n)] ± sr (n) ∓ sr (n) = ±2H[sf (n)]
where the output contains only the 90 degree phase shifted forward
signal.
yr (n) = Q (n) − H[D(n)] = {±H[sf (n)] ± sr (n)} − {±H[sf (n)] ∓ sr (n)}
= ±H[sf (n)] ∓ H[sf (n)] ± sr (n) ± sr (n) = ±2sr (n)
where the output contains only the reverse signal.
Fig. 2. Analysis and reconstruction stages of the MDTCWT algorithm.
Please cite this article in press as: G. Serbes, N. Aydin, Modified dual tree complex wavelet transform for processing quadrature signals, Biomed.
Signal Process. Control (2010), doi:10.1016/j.bspc.2010.09.007
3. Modified dual tree complex discrete wavelet transform
The DTCWT was developed to overcome the lack of shift invari-
ance property of ordinary DWT. Also it has limited redundancy
(2m :1 for m dimensional signals, which is a very good ratio as com-
pared with undecimated DWT). In the analysis of non-stationary
Doppler signals (particularly transient like signals), any distortion
in the phase of the signal cannot be tolerated as the direction of
the flow information is encoded in the phase relationship of the in-
phase and quadrature-phase components of the quadrature signal.
Doppler signals, first it must be decoded into the directional signals
and then two DTCWT should be applied. However, there exists an
algorithm that results in a reduced computational complexity com-
pared to conventional algorithm. This is attained by combining the
part of the PFT with a modified DTCWT as illustrated in the Fig. 2.
Conventional DTCWT consists of a pair of DWT trees, each repre-
senting real and imaginary parts of the transform. In both DWTs all
the filters are real and these two real trees use two different sets
of filters. These sets of filters are jointly designed so that the over-
all transform is approximately analytic. The details of the DTCWT
implementation can be found in [5–8]. In this transform, a real sig-
nal is applied to the both trees for decomposition and the outputs of
the both reconstructed trees are added at the end of reconstruction
stage.
In the MDTCWT, two modifications are made to the conven-
tional DTCWT as illustrated in Fig. 2. At the analysis stage, instead
of applying the complex quadrature signal to the both trees, the
in-phase part (D(n)) is applied to the real tree through a HT filter
introducing a 90 degree phase shift into the real part of the signal,
and the quadrature-phase part (Q(n)) is applied to the imaginary
tree directly (in practice, through a delay filter compansating the
(4)
time delay introduced by the HT filter). The real and imaginary trees
in this transform are the same as the conventional DTCWT, which
employs two real DWTs. The first DWT can be thought as the real
part of the transform while the second DWT can be thought as the
imaginary part of the transform. The two real wavelet transforms
use two different sets of filters, which satisfy the perfect recon-
struction conditions [9]. The two sets of filters are jointly designed
(5) so that the overall transform is approximately analytic. At the anal-
ysis stage, h0 (n) and h1 (n) denote the low-pass and high-pass filter
pair for the upper filterbank, g0 (n) and g1 (n) denote the low-pass
and high-pass filter pair for the lower filterbank. (↓2) is the down-
sampling operator causing either odd or even numbered samples to
be discarded. At the synthesis stage, h̃0 (n) and h̃1 (n) are low-pass
and high-pass filter pair for the upper filterbank, g̃0 (n) and g̃1 (n)
(6) are low-pass and high-pass filter pair for the lower filterbank. (↑2)
is the upsampling operator causing a zero to be inserted between
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Fig. 3. (a) An example of quadrature embolic Doppler signal including in-phase (thin line) and quadrature-phase (thick line) components. Forward (thin line) and reverse
(thick line) outputs using (b) the MDTCWT and (c) the PFT, and corresponding differences of (d) the reverse and (e) the forward signals.

samples. Normaly, downsampling/upsampling operator introduces It is known that the FT of the complex quadrature signal maps
aliasing/imaging. However the filters are designed in a such way directional information in the frequency domain [2]. Assuming that
that aliasing/imaging is cancelled out [9,10]. the positive frequencies represent forward flow signal sf (n) and the
At the reconstruction stage, in addition to adding the outputs negative frequencies represent the reverse flow signal sr (n), the
of reconstructed real and imaginary trees, which gives the signals following frequency domain definitions can be made.
caused by the blood flow in one direction (sf (n)), they are also sub-
tracted resulting in the signals caused by the blood flow in the other F{sf (n)} = S + (ω) for 0 ≤ ω < 
direction (sr (n)). The described algorithm is the equivalent to first −
F{sr (n)} = S (ω) for −  ≤ ω < 0 (8)
applying the PFT to the quadrature signal and then taking two con-
ventional DTCWT, but with reduced computational complexity. The
result is the same as the conventional PFT as described in [2], and
F{H[sf (n)]} = −jS + (ω) for 0 ≤ ω < 
the mathematical proof of the MDTCWT would be the same as the (9)
PFT. F{H[sr (n)]} = jS − (ω) for −  ≤ ω < 0
It is already mentioned that the filters used in the transform
yield a perfect reconstruction of the original signal if no interme- where F{·} stands for the FT. Accordingly, FT of (2) and (3) can be
diate operation such as denoising applied to modify the signal. rearranged in terms of the (8) and (9).
Let us assume that the new quadrature signal is s(n) if the signal
F{D(n)} = D(ω) = ±S + (ω) ± jS − (ω) (10)
y(n) given in (1) is manipulated during the transform (for example,
some scales are discarded) and its Fourier transform (FT) is S(ω).
F{Q (n)} = Q (ω) = ∓jS + (ω) ± S − (ω) (11)
Corresponding HT of s(n) in frequency domain can also be given as
 Applying HT operation to (10) results in
−jS(ω) for 0 ≤ ω < 
H[S(ω)] = (7)
jS(ω) for −  ≤ ω < 0 H[D(ω)] = F{H[D(n)]} = ∓jS + (ω) ∓ S − (ω). (12)

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Directional signals with noise

1
0
−1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
Original directional signals
1

−1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
De−Noised directional signals with MDTCWT
1

−1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
De−Noised directional signals with DTCWT
1

−1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
De−Noised directional signals with DWT
1

−1
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000
samples

Fig. 4. Denoised directional signals with three methods (dark line: forward signal, light line: reverse signal).

After addition and subtraction of (11) and (12), FT of the sepa-
rated outputs (forward and reverse signals) can be obtained:
F{yf (n)} = Q (ω) + H[D(ω)] = {∓jS + (ω) ± S − (ω)} + {∓jS + (ω) ∓ S − (ω)}
= ∓jS + (ω) ± S − (ω) ∓ jS + (ω) ∓ S − (ω) = ∓2jS + (ω) = ±2{−jS + (ω)}
where the output is the HT of sf (n) in frequency domain. Inverse
FT yields the desired output.
yf (n) = F−1 {F{yf (n)}} = F−1 {±2{−jS + (ω)}} = ±2F−1 {−jS + (ω)} = ±2H[sf (n)]
which contains only the 90 degree phase shifted forward signal.
F{yr (n)} = Q (ω) − H[D(ω)] = {∓jS + (ω) ± S − (ω)} − {∓jS + (ω) ∓ S − (ω)}
= ∓jS + (ω) ± S − (ω) ± jS + (ω) ± S − (ω) = ±2S − (ω)
Inverse FT of (15) yields the desired output.
yr (n) = F−1 {F{yr (n)}} = F−1 {±2S − (ω)} = ±2sr (n)
which contains only the reverse signal.
4. Materials and methods
In order to show that the proposed algorithm works as intended,
an embolic quadrature Doppler signal recorded from a patient
was used [3]. An example of such signal including in-phase (thin
line) and quadrature-phase (thick line) components is illustrated in
Fig. 3(a). The sampling frequency was 7150 Hz and only 512 points
were used. First, the forward and reverse signals were obtained by
using the PFT to compare with. Then the same quadrature signal
was decomposed to five levels and then reconstructed by using the
MDTCWT resulting in the forward and the reverse signals, which is
illustrated in Fig. 3(b). Finally, both results were compared statis-
tically by using the percent root mean square difference (PRD) for
both forward and reverse signals.

(xi − xj )2
PRD =  × 100
xj2
where xj is the resulting directional signal obtained by the PFT and
xi is the resulting directional signal obtained by the MDTCWT.
The computational complexity of the algorithm was also com-
pared with the PFT followed by two real DWTs, and the PFT followed
by two DTCWTs on a PC with Pentium M 1.86 GHz processor and
(13) 1 GB RAM. The algorithms were implemented in Matlab and tested
using a quadrature Doppler signal having 1024 samples. In order to
minimize effect of any computational time used by any program,
which might be running at the background, each algorithm was
(14) run 1000 times and average execution time of the algorithms were
calculated.
Similar to the conventional DWT, the MDTCWT algorithm can
also be utilized to implement different signal processing task such
(15) as denoising. Generally, in order to implement these applications,
coefficients of the transform must be used. Many scientific exper-
iments result in signals corrupted by noise, either because of
(16) the data acquisition process or environmental effects. The first
pre-processing step in analysing such signals is denoising, which
involves in estimating the unknown signal of interest from the
available noisy data. Thresholding is a widely used technique for
signal and image denoising. In thresholding, all frequency subband
coefficients that are less than a particular threshold are set to zero
and use these coefficients in an inverse wavelet transformation to
reconstruct the data set. In this respect, the denoising performance
of the proposed algorithm was compared with DWT and DTCWT.
In order to measure the performance, a simulation signal in
quadrature format with noise was constructed in Matlab pro-
gram and denoising process was implemented for the MDTCWT,
the DWT, and the DTCWT. Signal and noise model for quadrature
Doppler signal simulation can be given as:
ynoised (n) = Dnoised (n) + jQnoised (n) n = 1, . . . , N (18)
Dnoised (n) = D(n) + g(n) (19)
Qnoised (n) = Q (n) + g(n) (20)
(17) where ynoised is an N point noisy quadrature Doppler signal cor-
rupted by Gaussian noise g(n). For the qualitative comparison of
the denoising performances of three methods, the signals in (21)
and (22), which are corrupted with a Gaussian noise, were used.
The signals were normalized to 1 and the noise level was 0.20. The

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Forward signal average Root Mean Square Error

0.36 DTCWT
0.34 MDTCWT
DWT
RMS error 0.32
0.3
0.28
0.26
0.24
0.22
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Treshold value
Reverse signal average Root Mean Square Error
0.36 DTCWT
0.34 MDTCWT
DWT
0.32
RMS error

0.3
0.28
0.26
0.24
0.22
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Treshold value

Fig. 5. RMS errors for the MDTCWT, DWT and DTCWT for various threshold levels.

Table 1
 2nf   2nf 
n n
The PRD values for the forward and the reverse flow signals between the PFT and Q (n) = sin + cos + g(n) (24)
40, 000 40, 000
the MDTCWT.

The error (PRD) 5. Results and conclusion

Forward output signal 2.29 × 10−6
Reverse output signal 4.67 × 10−7 The signals representing forward and reverse flow components
of a Doppler signal, which are obtained by using the MDTCWT and
the PFT are shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c) respectively. The error signals
Table 2
Comparison of the processing times for the PFT with DWT, the PFT with DTCWT, and obtained by subtracting the signals in Fig. 3(c) from the signals in
the MDTCWT. Fig. 3(b) are illustrated in Fig. 3(d) and (e) respectively. It is remark-
able that the difference signals for both forward and reverse flow
Method Processing time (ms)
signals are around −80 dB, indicating that the algorithm works as
PFT with DWT 9.0
exactly intended. That is to say the algorithm decodes the quadra-
PFT with DTCWT 18.1
MDTCWT 9.1
ture Doppler signal into its forward and reverse flow components
while the DWT of the quadrature signal is taken.
Table 1 shows the results of the PFT and the MDTCWT
threshold level was also 0.20 for all methods. Fig. 4 illustrates the comparisons using the PRD. The PRDs for the reverse flow sig-
denoising results of test signals for all three methods. nals (2.29 × 10−6 ) and the forward flow signals (4.67 × 10−7 ) are
extremely small and negligible. Therefore the outputs of the both
 2n100   2n200 
algorithms can be assumed the same. It is obvious that these results
D(n) = cos + 0.5 sin + g(n) (21)
40, 000 40, 000 are in good correlation with the qualitative results shown in the
 2n100   2n200  Fig. 4. The processing times indicating the computational complex-
Q (n) = sin + 0.5 cos + g(n) (22) ities of three methods (the PFT with two DWT, the PFT with two
40, 000 40, 000
DTCWT, and the MDTCWT) are shown in Table 2. Computational
In order to compare the denoising performance of the proposed cost of the proposed algorithm (9.1 ms) is almost the same as the
method quantitatively, the difference between the original PFT out- PFT algorithm followed by two DWTs (9.0 ms) and half of the PFT
put and reconstructed outputs of the MDTCWT, DWT, and DTCWT algorithm followed by two DTCWTs (18.1 ms).
are computed as Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). For an unbiased Considering the denoising performance of the proposed algo-
comparison, a simulated quadrature signal containing the forward rithm, Fig. 5 illustrates the RMS errors for the MDTCWT, DWT
and reverse signals having the same amplitude and frequency was and DTCWT for various threshold levels. The proposed method,
used. Assuming that the algorithm performances would be affected MDTCWT, has better de-noising performance in both directions
by the signal frequency, the comparison was evaluated for 80 differ- than the conventional DWT. There is a notable improvement in
ent frequency values (from 100 Hz to 8000 Hz with 100 Hz steps and denoising performance over the denoising with the DWT with the
a sampling frequency of 40,000 Hz). Again, the denoising perfor- same computational complexity. Comparing the proposed algo-
mances of the three methods were evaluated for various threshold rithm with the DTCWT, the denoising with the DTCWT outperforms
levels for each frequency values. As a final step, a mean RMSE value both the DWT and MDTCWT up to threshold level of 0.3. However,
was computed for each threshold level. Fig. 4 shows the denoising its performance becomes worst when the threshold level exceeds
results for all three methods when the following quadrature signal 0.3.
model corrupted with a Gaussian noise was used. In conclusion, the MDTCWT algorithm is computationally effi-
 2nf   2nf  cient, inherently offers advantages provided by the conventional
n n DTCWT, and additionally maps directional signals at the end of the
D(n) = cos + sin + g(n) (23)
40, 000 40, 000 reconstruction stage. However, one disadvantage of the method is

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its dependence on the performance of the HT. In order to benefit
from the advantages offered by the proposed algorithm, the signal
to be analyzed must be band limited to the frequency response of
the HT. Otherwise the algorithms performance will be reduced. In
the future, it may be possible to design new complex wavelet fil-
ters having properties similar to that of a HT for further reducing
the computational complexity.
Acknowledgment
Authors thank to Dr. I.W. Selesnick for kindly providing permis-
sion to use DTCWT code.
References
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