Improved complete ensemble EMD: A suitable tool for biomedical signal processing

•Two major improvements on a noise-assisted EMD method are proposed.•The obtained components contain less noise and more physical meaning.•These improvements are confirmed on artificial signals.•The new method is successfully tested on several biomedical signals.•Information of physiological phenomena involved in their production is obtained.

The empirical mode decomposition (EMD) decomposes non-stationary signals that may stem from nonlinear systems, in a local and fully data-driven manner. Noise-assisted versions have been proposed to alleviate the so-called “mode mixing” phenomenon, which may appear when real signals are analyzed. Among them, the complete ensemble EMD with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) recovered the completeness property of EMD. In this work we present improvements on this last technique, obtaining components with less noise and more physical meaning. Artificial signals are analyzed to illustrate the capabilities of the new method. Finally, several real biomedical signals are decomposed, obtaining components that represent physiological phenomenons.