BaselineRauschen

BaselineRauschen is a term used in signal processing to describe persistent, low-amplitude noise that contaminates the baseline of a recorded signal. It manifests as gradual drift or slow fluctuations around an intended baseline, rather than as high-frequency, intermittent spikes. BaselineRauschen occurs across domains such as biomedical measurements, acoustic recordings, and scientific instrumentation.

Sources are diverse: thermal and flicker noise from sensors and electronics; power-supply ripple and grounding issues; temperature drift in amplifiers and cables; environmental electromagnetic interference; and data-processing artifacts from calibration errors or cross-talk between channels.

The presence of BaselineRauschen can bias measured values, distort baseline-dependent features, and reduce the detectable dynamic range of the signal. In electroencephalography (EEG) or electrocardiography (ECG), baseline drift can mimic slow physiological changes; in audio or spectroscopy, it complicates baseline correction and feature extraction.

Mitigation strategies include careful design of measurement systems (low-noise amplifiers, proper shielding and grounding), environmental control, and stable power supplies. On the signal-processing side, high-pass filtering (with appropriate cutoff), detrending, polynomial or spline baseline fitting, adaptive filtering, and reference-channel correction are commonly employed. Calibration and periodic maintenance help limit baselineRauschen over time.

See also: baseline drift, noise (signal processing), drift correction.