Locally Self-Adjustive Smoothing for Measurement Noise Reduction with Application to Automated Peak Detection

Smoothing is a widely used approach for measurement noise reduction in spectral analysis. However, it suffers from signal distortion caused by peak suppression. A locally self-adjustive smoothing method is developed that retains sharp peaks and less distorted signals. The proposed method uses only one parameter that determines the global smoothness of data, while balancing the local smoothness using the data itself. Simulation and real experiments in comparison with existing convolution-based smoothing methods indicate both qualitatively and quantitatively improved noise reduction performance in practical scenarios. We also discuss parameter selection and demonstrate an application for the automated smoothing and detection of a given number of peaks from noisy measurement data.