FPGA implementation of an adaptive window size image impulse noise suppression system

The conventional method for image impulse noise suppression is standard median filter utilization, which is satisfying for low noise densities, but not for medium to high noise densities. Adding a noise detection step, as proposed in the literature, makes this algorithm suitable for higher noises, but may degrade the performance at low noise densities. An adaptive switching median-based (ASM) algorithm has been used in this paper for noise suppression. First, the algorithm is modified to achieve a higher PSNR, especially for low noise densities. Then, the structure of the modified algorithm is improved to obtain higher operating speed in hardware implementation, for real-time applications. The implemented algorithm works in two steps, detection and filtering. The noise detection method is enhanced, by merging the amount of memory used for the algorithm implementation. As a result, less hardware resources are required, while the chance of false noise detection is reduced, due to the improvement made in the algorithm. In the filtering step, an adaptive window size is used, based on the measured noise density. This improved algorithm is adopted for more efficient hardware implementation. In addition, high parallelism is utilized to boost the operating frequency, and meanwhile, clock gating is used to lower power consumption. This architecture, then, has been implemented physically on an FPGA, and an operating frequency of 93 MHz is achieved. The hardware requirement is approximately 10,000 4-input LUTs, and the processing time for a 512 × 512 pixels image is measured at 12 ms.