Hardware implementation of the median-rational hybrid filters

Median-Rational Hybrid Filter (MRHF) was introduced recently as a new class of nonlinear filters and applied to image filtering problems. It has been shown that the MRHF have the inherent property that on smooth areas they provide good noise attenuation whereas on changing areas the noise attenuation is traded for a good response to the change. Moreover, they act in small window and few number of operations, resulting in simple and fast filter structures. We present in this paper a hardware implementation of the MRHF which exploits in an effective way the features and the robustness of both median filters and rational filters. This architecture is suitable for the use in real time due to its reduced hardware complexity in applications where size and cost are of critical significance