Uniform Phase Empirical Mode Decomposition: An Optimal Hybridization of Masking Signal and Ensemble Approaches

The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is an established method for the time-frequency analysis of nonlinear and nonstationary signals. However, one major drawback of the EMD is the mode mixing effect. Many modifications have been made to resolve the mode mixing effect. In particular, disturbance-assisted EMDs, such as the noise-assisted EMD and the masking EMD, have been proposed to resolve this problem. These disturbance-assisted approaches have led to a better performance of the EMD in the analysis of real-world data sets, but they may also have two side effects: the mode splitting and residual noise effects. To minimize or eliminate the mode mixing effect while avoiding the two side effects of traditional disturbance-assisted EMDs, we propose an EMD-based algorithm assisted by sinusoidal functions with a designed uniform phase distribution with a comprehensive theoretical explanation for the substantial reduction of the mode splitting and the residual noise effects simultaneously. We examine the performance of the new method and compare it to those of other disturbance-assisted EMDs using synthetic signals. Finally numerical experiments with real-world examples are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed method.