The term, adaptive filter, means that the characteristics of a filter are changing in a self automated fashion to obtain the best possible signal quality. Adaptive filters are usually associated with the broader topic of statistical signal processing.
An optimum linear filter (FIR or IIR) in the minimum mean square sense can be specifically designed to extract a signal from any noise by minimizing the error signal formed by subtracting the filtered signal from the desired signal. For noisy signals with time varying statistics, this minimization process is often done using an adaptive filter.
MatDeck contains the function, lmsadaptive(), which is commonly used for adaptive filtering utilizing the most common LMS algorithm. Adaptive filters can be used offline using lmsadaptive(), or they can be used remotely through TCP/IP channel by using lmsreceiver().