Connexions module: m12009

FIR Filters
adrian valenzuela

This work is produced by The Connexions Project and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Abstract In signal processing, a lter removes unwanted parts of the signal, such as random noise, or extracts the useful parts of the signal, such as the components lying within a certain frequency range.
In signal processing, there are many instances in which an input signal to a system contains extra unnecessary content or additional noise which can degrade the quality of the desired portion. In such cases we may remove or lter out the useless samples. For example, in the case of the telephone system, there is no reason to transmit very high frequencies since most speech falls within the band of 400 to 3,400 Hz. Therefore, in this case, all frequencies above and below that band are ltered out. The frequency band between 400 and 3,400 Hz, which isn't ltered out, is known as the passband, and the frequency band that is blocked out is known as the stopband. FIR, Finite Impulse Response, lters are one of the primary types of lters used in Digital Signal Processing. FIR lters are said to be nite because they do not have any feedback. Therefore, if you send an impulse through the system (a single spike) then the output will invariably become zero as soon as the impulse runs through the lter.

1 How to characterize digital FIR lters

There are a few terms used to describe the behavior and performance of FIR lter including the following: - The set of constants, also called tap weights, used to multiply against delayed sample values. For an FIR lter, the lter coecients are, by denition, the impulse response of the lter.  A lter's time domain output sequence when the input is an impulse. An impulse is a single unity-valued sample followed and preceded by zero-valued samples. For an FIR lter the impulse response of a FIR lter is the set of lter coecients.  The number of FIR taps, typically N, tells us a couple things about the lter. Most importantly it tells us the amount of memory needed, the number of calculations required, and the amount of "ltering" that it can do. Basically, the more taps in a lter results in better stopband attenuation (less of the part we want ltered out), less rippling (less variations in the passband), and steeper rollo (a shorter transition between the passband and the stopband).  In the context of FIR Filters, a "MAC" is the operation of multiplying a coecient by the corresponding delayed data sample and accumulating the result. There is usually one MAC per tap.

Filter Coecients

Impulse Response

Tap

Multiply-Accumulate (MAC)

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1.5: Aug 21, 2005 6:40 pm GMT-5

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2 General types of lter

There are a couple dierent basic lter responses. Each will have a unique frequency response based on its cut-o frequency, the number of taps used, its roll o, and amount of ripple. The various attributes describing a lter may be seen in the following diagram:

Figure 1: This gure demonstrates an FIR low pass lter with 40 taps.

Reducing the number of taps used in the lter will reduce the number of calculations to process in the signal, however, the quality of the ltering will suer. Rippling will become more sever, the rollo will be less steep, and the passband will be less accurate. This may be seen in the following diagram where fewer number of taps were used.

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Figure 2: Using only 11 taps has degraded the lter from gure 1.

All lters may be categorized by the section of the frequency spectrum that they alter. The following gures depict some of the basic types of digital lters:

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Figure 3: High pass lters remove low frequency content.

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Figure 4: Bandpass lters allow a section in the middle of the spectrum to remain.

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Figure 5: Stopband lters remove a section in the middle of the spectum.

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