#3 Introduction to Filters

AU Jibia
What is filtering?
• Filtering is the process of altering the frequency content of a signal.
• It is probably the most widely used signal processing operation.

The box containing H(f) is known as the filter.

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What is a filter?
• A filter is a system or network that selectively changes the
waveshape, amplitude-frequency and/or phase-frequency
characteristics of a signal in a desired manner.
• Common filtering objectives include:
i. Improving the quality of a signal by, for example, removing or reducing
noise.
ii. Extracting information from a signal
iii. Separating two or more signals previously combined.

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Types of Filters

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Filter Terminology

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Filter Terminology
• Passband: the frequency range you are interested in preserving in the output signal
• Stopband: the frequency range you are interested in eliminating in the output signal
• Transition-band: the band over which the frequency response transitions from the
passband to the stopband; would like it to be as small as possible
• Gain: refers to the amount of maximum amplification of the signal in the passband
• Stopband attenuation: the difference in dB between the passband gain and stopband
gain
• Passband ripple: the maximum fluctuation in filter's frequency response in the passband;
usually measure in dB
• Stopband ripple: the maximum fluctuation in the frequency response in the stopband;
essentially irrelevant as long as the stopband attenuation is met

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Continuous-Time Filter Types

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Digital Filters
• A digital filter is a mathematical algorithm implemented in hardware
and/or software that operates on a digital input signal to produce a
digital output signal for the purpose of achieving a filtering objective.
• The term digital filter refers to the specific hardware or software
routine that performs the filtering algorithm.

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Advantages over Analogue Filters
• Digital filters can have characteristics which are not possible with
analogue filters, such as linear phase response.
• Performance does not depend on environmental changes. Hence, no
need for periodic calibration.
• Frequency response can be automatically adjusted if implemented
using a programmable processor.
• Several input channels can be filtered by one digital filter without the
need to replicate the hardware.
• Both filtered and unfiltered data can be saved for further use.

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Advantages over Analogue Filters
• They can be made small, low power and low cost due to VLSI.
• Applicable to very low frequencies, for example in biomedical, where
the use of analogue filters is impractical.

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Disadvantages
• Speed constraint introduced by the ADA conversion process and the
processor speed.
• Finite word length effects: digital filters are subject to quantization
noise and round-off noise during computation.
• Longer design and development times.

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The Nonrecursive (FIR) Filter
• Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter is a filter whose unit sample
response (or response to any finite length input) is of finite duration,
because it settles to zero in finite time.
• Features
• Since FIR does not have any poles, it is always guaranteed to be
stable.
• If the weights are chosen to be symmetrical, the filter has a linear
phase response.
• If sharp cutoff points are desired, a high order FIR filter is necessary
resulting in long delay lines.

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The Nonrecursive (FIR) Filter
• A finite-duration impulse response filter has a system function of the
form

• The difference equation:

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The Recursive (IIR) Filter
• Infinite impulse response (IIR) is a property applying to many linear
time-invariant systems that are distinguished by having a unit sample
response h(t) which does not become exactly zero past a certain
point, but continues indefinitely.
• Features
• The IIR filters has poles. So, it is important to choose 𝑎𝑖 so that the
poles stay inside the unit circle.
• It is quite possible to build low-order filters with sharp cutoff
properties.

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The Recursive (IIR) Filter
• The system function of an IIR filter is given by

• The difference equation representation of an IIR filter is expressed

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