Ultrasound imaging has been widely used as the primary screening of the kidney as it is noninvasive and affordable. Ultrasound can be used to measure the size and appearance of the kidneys and to detect tumors, congenital anomalies, swelling and blockage of urine flow. However, this scanning procedure is a time taking method because of the ultrasound image is full of speckle noise. Thus, the user eventually notices that it is hard to detect the boundary of the kidney in the US image, even it’s done by the trained sonographers. In addition, human error might occur during the interpretation of ultrasound image by untrained sonographer, especially when taking measurement. Therefore, in order to reduce the dependability to the sonographers’ expertise, some image processing can be done which can automatically detect the centroid of human kidney. The software was developed using MATLAB consist of speckle noise reduction, Gaussian filter, texture filter and morphological operators which were used for image segmentation in order to extract important features. For the result, median filter has been chosen as speckle noise reduction techniques as it is faster and detect kidney centroid better compared to wiener filter, wavelet filter and speckle noise anistrophic diffusion (SRAD) filter. This software can achieve until 96.43% of accuracy in detecting the centroid. The detected centroid can be implemented in the existing ultrasound machine that will be used as segmentation tool to reduce human errors and time. kidney, ultrasound, texture, morphological, Gaussian I. INTRODUCTION UMAN kidneys can be evaluated by many imaging modalities such as ultrasound (US), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), plain radiographs (xrays), intravenous urography (IVU), computerized tomography (CT), and angiography [13]. These imaging techniques are important for the medical practitioners to determine the health of the kidneys and also to visualize any abnormalities present in the kidneys. IVU can be used in measuring kidney size and shape Manuscript received August 21, 2011. W. M. Hafizah is with the Advanced Diagnostics and Progressive Human Care Research Group, UTM Skudai, 81310 Johor, Malaysia (phone: +607 5535273; email: wmhafizah@gmail.com). N. A. Tahir was with the Advanced Diagnostics and Progressive Human Care Research Group, UTM Skudai, 81310 Johor, Malaysia (email: nafiqah9@gmail.com). E. Supriyanto is with the Clinical Science and Engineering Department, FKBSK, UTM Skudai, Johor 81310 Malaysia (email: eko@utm.my). Adeela Arooj was with the Clinical Science and Engineering Department, FKBSK, UTM Skudai, Johor 81310 Malaysia (email: adeela@utm.my). S. M. Nooh is with the Clinical Science and Engineering Department, FKBSK, UTM Skudai, Johor 81310 Malaysia (email: syedmohdnooh@utm.my). as well as in evaluating the pelvis and ureters. IVU is the common kidney Xray used to diagnose a wide range of problems especially if the patients have pain in the kidneys, blood in the urine, as well as suspected of obstruction, kidney stones and congenital abnormalities. However, the use of IVU may leads to serious side effects due to the use of contrast dyes. CT scan is best used in the diagnosis of the kidneys to detect tumors or other lesions, kidney stones, congenital anomalies, fluid around the kidneys, and the location of abscesses. CT scans of the kidneys can provide more detailed information about the kidneys thus providing more information related to injuries as well as diseases of the kidneys, but highly risk due to radiation exposure. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), with the advantage of superior softtissue contrast, provides as a powerful tool in the detection and characterization of kidney lesions. Compared to CT scans which using the xray beam, MRI scans use radio waves and strong magnets where the energy from the radio waves is absorbed and then released in a pattern formed by the type of body tissue and by certain diseases. Then, a computer translates the pattern into a very detailed image of parts of the body. However, the use of MRI is not as comfortable as other imaging techniques as it takes longer time for diagnosis session. Besides, it is also not as affordable as US [4]. Ultrasound (US) is one of the modality of first choice in kidney imaging. US can be used to measure the size and appearance of the kidneys and to detect tumors, congenital anomalies, swelling and blockage of urine flow. As this imaging technique is noninvasive, portable, and affordable and does not require radiation, most of the medical practitioner chosen US for primary screening of kidneys’ condition. However, US image is difficult to analyze because of its data composition which is described in terms of speckle formation [5]. Speckle noise is caused by random interference between coherent backscattered waves which may have negative effect on image interpretation and diagnostic tasks. Thus, the user eventually notices that it is hard to detect the boundary of the kidney in the US image even it is done by the trained sonographers. In addition, human error might occur during the interpretation of US image by untrained sonographer, especially when taking measurement [6] This is the reason why the kidney US procedure needs much more time to be done. This condition also makes the patient feel uncomfortable where he/she need to change his/her position New Technique towards Operator Independent Kidney Ultrasound Scanning Wan M. Hafizah, Nurul A. Tahir, Eko Supriyanto, Adeela Arooj, Syed M. Nooh H INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS Issue 1, Volume 6, 2012 73