Wavelet Leaders: A new method to estimate the multifractal singularity spectra

Wavelet Leaders is a novel alternative based on wavelet analysis for estimating the Multifractal Spectrum. It was proposed by Jaffard and co-workers improving the usual wavelet methods. In this work, we analyze and compare it with the well known Multifractal Detrended Fluctuation Analysis. The latter is a comprehensible and well adapted method for natural and weakly stationary signals. Alternatively, Wavelet Leaders exploits the wavelet self-similarity structures combined with the Multiresolution Analysis scheme. We give a brief introduction on the multifractal formalism and the particular implementation of the above methods and we compare their effectiveness. We expose several cases: Cantor measures, Binomial Multiplicative Cascades and also natural series from a tonic–clonic epileptic seizure. We analyze the results and extract the conclusions.