Abstract
This paper introduces the mathematical formalism of the wavelet transform. We present the orthogonal and bior- thogonal wavelets, and the filter banks based signal processing. We point out the lifting scheme technique and compare it to the filter banks method, and show the advantages in terms of hardware implementation offered by the lifting scheme, compared to classical filter banks based architectures. We then review the different types of architectures for the wavelet transform found in the literature, and present an efficient architecture for the 2D wavelet transform using lifting scheme techniques. The extension of this architecture for the multiresolution decomposition is then described. The proposed architecture allows the real-time processing of images, and only needs a minimal silicon area. This architecture is suitable for embedded image processing system on chip, for video coding and compression.