MRL-filters: a general class of nonlinear systems and their optimal design for image processing

A class of morphological/rank/linear (MRL)-filters is presented as a general nonlinear tool for image processing. They consist of a linear combination between a morphological/rank filter and a linear filter. A gradient steepest descent method is proposed to optimally design these filters, using the averaged least mean squares (LMS) algorithm. The filter design is viewed as a learning process, and convergence issues are theoretically and experimentally investigated. A systematic approach is proposed to overcome the problem of nondifferentiability of the nonlinear filter component and to improve the numerical robustness of the training algorithm, which results in simple training equations. Image processing applications in system identification and image restoration are also presented, illustrating the simplicity of training MRL-filters and their effectiveness for image/signal processing.