Cascaded Integrator-Comb (CIC) Filter Introduction
In the classic paper, "An Economical Class of Digital Filters for Decimation and Interpolation", Hogenauer introduced an important class of digital filters called "Cascaded Integrator-Comb", or "CIC" for short (also sometimes called "Hogenauer filters"). Here, Matthew Donadio provides a more gentle introduction to the subject of CIC filters, geared specifically to the needs of practicing DSP designers.
The Risk In Using Frequency Domain Curves To Evaluate Digital Integrator Performance
This article shows the danger in evaluating the performance of a digital integration network based solely on its frequency response curve. If you plan on implementing a digital integrator in your signal processing work I recommend you continue reading this article.
Implementing Simultaneous Digital Differentiation, Hilbert Transformation, and Half-Band Filtering
Recently I've been thinking about digital differentiator and Hilbert transformer implementations and I've developed a processing scheme that may be of interest to the readers here on dsprelated.com.
Using the DFT as a Filter: Correcting a Misconception
I have read, in some of the literature of DSP, that when the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) is used as a filter the process of performing a DFT causes an input signal's spectrum to be frequency translated down to zero Hz (DC). I can understand why someone might say that, but I challenge that statement as being incorrect. Here are my thoughts.
Correcting an Important Goertzel Filter Misconception
Correcting an Important Goertzel Filter Misconception
Understanding the 'Phasing Method' of Single Sideband Demodulation
There are four ways to demodulate a transmitted single sideband (SSB) signal. Those four methods are: synchronous detection, phasing method, Weaver method, and filtering method. Here we review synchronous detection in preparation for explaining, in detail, how the phasing method works. This blog contains lots of preliminary information, so if you're already familiar with SSB signals you might want to scroll down to the 'SSB DEMODULATION BY SYNCHRONOUS DETECTION' section.
Design IIR Bandpass Filters
In this post, I present a method to design Butterworth IIR bandpass filters. My previous post [1] covered lowpass IIR filter design, and provided a Matlab function to design them. Here, we'll do the same thing for IIR bandpass filters, with a Matlab function bp_synth.m
Fundamentals of the DFT (fft) Algorithms
In this article, a physical explanation of the fundamentals of the DFT (fft) algorithms is presented in terms of waveform decomposition. After reading the article and trying the examples, the reader is expected to gain a clear understanding of the basics of the mysterious DFT (fft) algorithms.
Complex Digital Signal Processing in Telecommunications
Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is a vital tool for scientists and engineers, as it is of fundamental importance in many areas of engineering practice and scientific research. The "alphabet" of DSP is mathematics and although most practical DSP problems can be solved by using real number mathematics, there are many others which can only be satisfactorily resolved or adequately described by means of complex numbers. If real number mathematics is the language of real DSP, then complex number mathematics is the language of complex DSP. In the same way that real numbers are a part of complex numbers in mathematics, real DSP can be regarded as a part of complex DSP (Smith, 1999). Complex mathematics manipulates complex numbers - the representation of two variables as a single number - and it may appear that complex DSP has no obvious connection with our everyday experience, especially since many DSP problems are explained mainly by means of real number mathematics. Nonetheless, some DSP techniques are based on complex mathematics, such as Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), z-transform, representation of periodical signals and linear systems, etc. However, the imaginary part of complex transformations is usually ignored or regarded as zero due to the inability to provide a readily comprehensible physical explanation. One well-known practical approach to the representation of an engineering problem by means of complex numbers can be referred to as the assembling approach: the real and imaginary parts of a complex number are real variables and individually can represent two real physical parameters. Complex math techniques are used to process this complex entity once it is assembled. The real and imaginary parts of the resulting complex variable preserve the same real physical parameters. This approach is not universally-applicable and can only be used with problems and applications which conform to the requirements of complex math techniques. Making a complex number entirely mathematically equivalent to a substantial physical problem is the real essence of complex DSP. Like complex Fourier transforms, complex DSP transforms show the fundamental nature of complex DSP and such complex techniques often increase the power of basic DSP methods. The development and application of complex DSP are only just beginning to increase and for this reason some researchers have named it theoretical DSP. It is evident that complex DSP is more complicated than real DSP. Complex DSP transforms are highly theoretical and mathematical; to use them efficiently and professionally requires a large amount of mathematics study and practical experience. Complex math makes the mathematical expressions used in DSP more compact and solves the problems which real math cannot deal with. Complex DSP techniques can complement our understanding of how physical systems perform but to achieve this, we are faced with the necessity of dealing with extensive sophisticated mathematics. For DSP professionals there comes a point at which they have no real choice since the study of complex number mathematics is the foundation of DSP.
Bilinear Transformation Made Easy
A formula is derived and demonstrated that is capable of directly generating digital filter coefficients from an analog filter prototype using the bilinear transformation. This formula obviates the need for any algebraic manipulation of the analog prototype filter and is ideal for use in embedded systems that must take in any general analog filter specification and dynamically generate digital filter coefficients directly usable in difference equations.
Digital PLL's - Part 2
In Part 1, we found the time response of a 2nd order PLL with a proportional + integral (lead-lag) loop filter. Now let's look at this PLL in the Z-domain.
The Swiss Army Knife of Digital Networks
This article describes a general discrete-signal network that appears, in various forms, inside so many DSP applications.
Digital PLL's -- Part 1
We will use Matlab to model the DPLL in the time and frequency domains (Simulink is also a good tool for modeling a DPLL in the time domain). Part 1 discusses the time domain model; the frequency domain model will be covered in Part 2. The frequency domain model will allow us to calculate the loop filter parameters to give the desired bandwidth and damping, but it is a linear model and cannot predict acquisition behavior. The time domain model can be made almost identical to the gate-level system, and as such, is able to model acquisition.
Decimator Image Response
This article presents a way to compute and plot the image response of a decimator. I'm defining the image response as the unwanted spectrum of the impulse response after downsampling, relative to the desired passband response.
Filter a Rectangular Pulse with no Ringing
To filter a rectangular pulse without any ringing, there is only one requirement on the filter coefficients: they must all be positive. However, if we want the leading and trailing edge of the pulse to be symmetrical, then the coefficients must be symmetrical. What we are describing is basically a window function.
Digital Envelope Detection: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Recently I've been thinking about the process of envelope detection. Tutorial information on this topic is readily available but that information is spread out over a number of DSP textbooks and many Internet web sites. The purpose of this blog is to summarize various digital envelope detection methods in one place. Here I focus of envelope detection as it is applied to an amplitude-fluctuating sinusoidal signal where the positive-amplitude fluctuations (the sinusoid's envelope) contain some sort of information. Let's begin by looking at the simplest envelope detection method.
Python For Audio Signal Processing
This paper discusses the use of Python for developing audio signal processing applications. Overviews of Python language, NumPy, SciPy and Matplotlib are given, which together form a powerful platform for scientific computing. We then show how SciPy was used to create two audio programming libraries, and describe ways that Python can be integrated with the SndObj library and Pure Data, two existing environments for music composition and signal processing.
Lecture Notes on Elliptic Filter Design
Elliptic filters, also known as Cauer or Zolotarev filters, achieve the smallest filter order for the same specifications, or, the narrowest transition width for the same filter order, as compared to other filter types. On the negative side, they have the most nonlinear phase response over their passband. In these notes, we are primarily concerned with elliptic filters. But we will also discuss briefly the design of Butterworth, Chebyshev-1, and Chebyshev-2 filters and present a unified method of designing all cases. We also discuss the design of digital IIR filters using the bilinear transformation method.
Optimizing the Half-band Filters in Multistage Decimation and Interpolation
This article discusses a not so well-known rule regarding the filtering in multistage decimation and interpolation by an integer power of two.
The DFT Magnitude of a Real-valued Cosine Sequence
This article may seem a bit trivial to some readers here but, then again, it might be of some value to DSP beginners. It presents a mathematical proof of what is the magnitude of an N-point discrete Fourier transform (DFT) when the DFT's input is a real-valued sinusoidal sequence.
The Swiss Army Knife of Digital Networks
This article describes a general discrete-signal network that appears, in various forms, inside so many DSP applications.
Design IIR Butterworth Filters Using 12 Lines of Code
While there are plenty of canned functions to design Butterworth IIR filters [1], it's instructive and not that complicated to design them from scratch. You can do it in 12 lines of Matlab code.
Method to Calculate the Inverse of a Complex Matrix using Real Matrix Inversion
This paper describes a simple method to calculate the invers of a complex matrix. The key element of the method is to use a matrix inversion, which is available and optimised for real numbers. Some actual libraries used for digital signal processing only provide highly optimised methods to calculate the inverse of a real matrix, whereas no solution for complex matrices are available, like in [1]. The presented algorithm is very easy to implement, while still much more efficient than for example the method presented in [2]. [1] Visual DSP++ 4.0 C/C++ Compiler and Library Manual for TigerSHARC Processors; Analog Devices; 2005. [2] W. Press, S.A. Teukolsky, W.T. Vetterling, B.R. Flannery; Numerical Recipes in C++, The art of scientific computing, Second Edition; p52 : “Complex Systems of Equations”;Cambridge University Press 2002.
The DFT of Finite-Length Time-Reversed Sequences
Recently I've been reading papers on underwater acoustic communications systems and this caused me to investigate the frequency-domain effects of time-reversal of time-domain sequences. I created this article because there is so little coverage of this topic in the literature of DSP.
Adaptive Algorithms in Digital Signal Processing - Overview, Theory and Applications
Generating Complex Baseband and Analytic Bandpass Signals
There are so many different time- and frequency-domain methods for generating complex baseband and analytic bandpass signals that I had trouble keeping those techniques straight in my mind. Thus, for my own benefit, I created a kind of reference table showing those methods. I present that table for your viewing pleasure in this document.
Multirate Systems and Filter Banks
During the last two decades, multirate filter banks have found various applications in many different areas, such as speech coding, scrambling, adaptive signal processing, image compression, signal and image processing applications as well as transmission of several signals through the same channel. The main idea of using multirate filter banks is the ability of the system to separate in the frequency domain the signal under consideration into two or more signals or to compose two or more different signals into a single signal.
How Discrete Signal Interpolation Improves D/A Conversion
Earlier this year, for the Linear Audio magazine, published in the Netherlands whose subscribers are technically-skilled hi-fi audio enthusiasts, I wrote an article on the fundamentals of interpolation as it's used to improve the performance of analog-to-digital conversion. Perhaps that article will be of some value to the subscribers of dsprelated.com. Here's what I wrote: We encounter the process of digital-to-analog conversion every day—in telephone calls (land lines and cell phones), telephone answering machines, CD & DVD players, iPhones, digital television, MP3 players, digital radio, and even talking greeting cards. This material is a brief tutorial on how sample rate conversion improves the quality of digital-to-analog conversion.
LOW-RESOURCE DELAYLESS SUBBAND ADAPTIVE FILTER USING WEIGHTED OVERLAP-ADD
A delayless structure targeted for low-resource implementation is proposed to eliminate filterbank processing delays in subband adaptive filters (SAFs). Rather than using direct IFFT or polyphase filterbanks to transform the SAFs back into the time-domain, the proposed method utilizes a weighted overlap-add (WOLA) synthesis. Low-resource real-time implementations are targeted and as such do not involve long (as long as the echo plant) FFT or IFFT operations. Also, the proposed approach facilitates time distribution of the adaptive filter reconstruction calculations crucial for efficient real-time and hardware implementation. The method is implemented on an oversampled WOLA filterbank employed as part of an echo cancellation application. Evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed implementation outperforms conventional SAF systems since the signals used in actual adaptive filtering are not distorted by filterbank aliasing. The method is a good match for partial update adaptive algorithms since segments of the time-domain adaptive filter are sequentially reconstructed and updated.






