K. S. Sim, N. S. Kamel, H. T. Chuah

Faculty of Engineering and Technology (FET), Multimedia University, Melaka, Malaysia

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Summary: In this paper, we propose to use the autoregressive (AR)-based interpolator with Wiener filter and apply the idea to scanning electron microscope (SEM) images. The concept for combining the AR-based interpolator with Wiener filtering comes from the essential requirement of Wiener filtering for accurate and consistent estimation of the power of the noise in images prior to filter implementation. The resultant filter is called AR-Wiener filter. The proposed filter is embedded onto the frame grabber card of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) for real-time image processing. Different images are captured using SEM and used to compare the performances of the conventional Wiener and the proposed AR-Wiener technique.

Key words: noise, parameter estimation, autoregressive model, digital acquisition, wiener filter

PACs: 07.78.+s, 05.40.Ca, 07.05.Pj