Uformer: A UNet-Transformer fused robust end-to-end deep learning framework for real-time denoising of lung sounds

Objective: Lung auscultation is a valuable tool in diagnosing and monitoring various respiratory diseases. However, lung sounds (LS) are significantly affected by numerous sources of contamination, especially when recorded in real-world clinical settings. Conventional denoising models prove impracti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-04
Main Authors: Samiul Based Shuvo, Alam, Syed Samiul, Hasan, Taufiq
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Artificial neural networks
Coders
Deep learning
Lungs
Machine learning
Modules
Monitoring
Noise
Noise levels
Noise reduction
Respiratory diseases
Robustness
Signal to noise ratio
Transformers
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Summary:Objective: Lung auscultation is a valuable tool in diagnosing and monitoring various respiratory diseases. However, lung sounds (LS) are significantly affected by numerous sources of contamination, especially when recorded in real-world clinical settings. Conventional denoising models prove impractical for LS denoising, primarily owing to spectral overlap complexities arising from diverse noise sources. To address this issue, we propose a specialized deep-learning model (Uformer) for lung sound denoising. Methods: The proposed Uformer model is constituted of three modules: a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) encoder module, dedicated to extracting latent features; a Transformer encoder module, employed to further enhance the encoding of unique LS features and effectively capture intricate long-range dependencies; and a CNN decoder module, employed to generate the denoised signals. An ablation study was performed in order to find the most optimal architecture. Results: The performance of the proposed Uformer model was evaluated on lung sounds induced with different types of synthetic and real-world noises. Lung sound signals of -12 dB to 15 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were considered in testing experiments. The proposed model showed an average SNR improvement of 16.51 dB when evaluated with -12 dB LS signals. Our end-to-end model, with an average SNR improvement of 19.31 dB, outperforms the existing model when evaluated with ambient noise and fewer parameters. Conclusion: Based on the qualitative and quantitative findings in this study, it can be stated that Uformer is robust and generalized to be used in assisting the monitoring of respiratory conditions.
ISSN:2331-8422