WAVELET TRANSFORM

The wavelet transform is a technique of time-frequency analysis developed in the early 1990s. For wavelet analysis, either a continuous or a discrete transform can be performed. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used to the analysis due to its calculation efficiency and its ability to do a multiresolution analysis. The theory of wavelet transform and the process in its adaptation and application to the analysis of roughness are described here. The details of wavelet transform are well documented elsewhere (1, 2). DWT presents a signal f (t) , which is a function of time t , as a linear combination of a set of decomposition functions j, k (t) , which are generated from a basis function called mother wavelet

(t) corresponding to integers of j and k . That is,

f (t) = a j, k j, k (t)
j k

(1)

where a j, k are two dimensional array coefficients that incorporate the scaling and shift functions in the transformation as follows:

a j, k = f (t) j, k (t)dt

(2)

The decomposition functions j, k (t) are applied in the decomposition process of DWT as follows:

j, k (t) = 2

j 2 (2 j t k)

(3)

where integer j is an indicator of the wavelet frequency or spectrum shift namely the scaling parameter, and integer k represents translation of the wavelet function and indicates the location in time/distance in a wavelet transform, that is, the shift parameter. With this representation, DWT can perform multiresolution analysis using a fast pyramid algorithm. In this algorithm, the signal is analyzed at different frequency bands with different resolution by decomposing the signal into components consisting of a coarse approximation supplemented by detailed information. The approximation can be then further decomposed to provide more detailed information. In this process, the first level of analysis consists of decomposition of an analyzing profile s(t) where t now represents the distance dimension into a low-frequency component namely an approximation a1 and a high-frequency component namely a detail d1 . In the next level, a1 is decomposed into a low- frequency component a2 and a high- frequency component d2 . This process is repeated in the subsequent level and is mathematically represented as follows:

a j (k) = h j (2k i)s(i)

i=1 N

j = 1, 2,..., L j = 1, 2,..., L

(4)

d j (k) = g j (2k i)s(i)

i=1

(5)

where L : total number of levels of decomposition, N : number of data points in the profile data, a j : low-frequency (approximation) component of level j d j : high-frequency (detail) component of level j

h j : low-pass filter of level j g j : high-pass filter of level j

The two-dimensional wavelet decomposition process allows identifying variations of the signal in both the time and frequency dimensions. REFERENCES 1. Daubechies, I. Ten Lectures on Wavelets. CBMS-NSF Conference Series in Applied Mathematics, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, Pa., 1992. 2. Mallat, S. A. Wavelet Tour of Signal Processing. Academic Press, San Diego, CA., 1999.