Design of a field programmable gate array-based platform for real-time de-noising of optical imaging signals using wavelet transforms

In this study, the design of a low-cost, field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based digital hardware platform that implements wavelet transform algorithms for real-time signal de-noising of optical imaging signals is presented. The proposed digital hardware de-noising platform can achieve a throughput of 25 Msamples per second, with a latency from input to output of 1.5 μs. The system fits on a 10K20, one of the smaller field programmable gate arrays from the Altera Flex 10K family, and represents a low-cost approach to signal de-noising. Preliminary experimental results clearly indicate the potential of the presented FPGA-based digital platform for real-time de-noising of signals utilized for the detection and imaging of surface defects and discontinuities.