Abstract
Interferometers with a low-coherent illumination allow non-contact measuring the rough surface relief or multilayer tissues by locating the visibility maxima of interference fringes. The problem is the light scattering by the surface to be evaluated; it is why the interference fringes are often distorted. Other problem consists in the need to process large amount of data obtained in optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems. We propose to use a stochastic fringe model and Kalman filtering method for noisy low-coherent fringe processing. A fringe signal value is predicted at the next discretization step using full information available before this step and the prediction error is used for dynamic correction of fringe envelope and phase. The advantages of Kalman filtering method consist in its noise-immunity, high-speed data processing and optimal evaluation of fringe parameters.