Image processing methods for noise reduction in the TJ-II Thomson Scattering diagnostic

The Thomsom Scattering diagnostic of the TJ-II stellarator provides temperature and density profiles. The CCD camera acquires images corrupted with noise that, in some cases, can produce unreliable profiles. The main source of noise is the so-called stray-light. In this paper we describe an approach that allows mitigation of the effects that stray-light has on the images: extraction regions with connected-components. In addition, the robustness and effectiveness of the noise reduction technique is validated in two ways: (1) supervised classification and (2) comparison of electron temperature profiles.