Determine Type of noise in a signal?

Dear All;

i have a signal contaminated with noise is there any way to determine the type of noise?

[Adam Danz]

Not nearly enough information.

[Mustafa Al-Nasser]

I mean if i have a noisy signal but i do not know the type of noise if it white or color ..etc , how can deteremine the type of noise ?

[Adam Danz]

There aren't set categories of "types of noise". White noise, brown noise etc are one type. But there are other "types" of noise as well (example).

The term 'signal' is also vague. Are you describing a time series? Is the signal something that's extracted from a fit?

The first step is to very clearly define 'signal' and 'noise'.

Then, it would be helpful to plot that out and visualize the data so you can show others what you're working with.

Answer 1

[Jan]

This is not possible, if you only have the given information.

The signal could be the sea-level at a specific location. If you signal is the height of the tide, the high-frequency waves are the noise, with a specific distribution. But if you want to measure the height of waves, the regular low-frequency tides are the noise. The pure signal alone does not allow to identify what you consider as noise.

You have to define, what is the noise and what is the wanted signal. Unfortunately in most real cases you have to assume the nature of the noise, e.g. the amplitude and frequency distribution, at first to be able to distinguish it from the usable signal. This means, that having a signal does not allow to determine the type of the noise without further knowledge or assumptions.