On the eigenfilter design method and its applications: a tutorial

The eigenfilter method for digital filter design involves the computation of filter coefficients as the eigenvector of an appropriate Hermitian matrix. Because of its low complexity as compared to other methods as well as its ability to incorporate various time and frequency-domain constraints easily, the eigenfilter method has been found to be very useful. In this paper, we present a review of the eigenfilter design method for a wide variety of filters, including linear-phase finite impulse response (FIR) filters, nonlinear-phase FIR filters, all-pass infinite impulse response (IIR) filters, arbitrary response IIR filters, and multidimensional filters. Also, we focus on applications of the eigenfilter method in multistage filter design, spectral/spacial beamforming, and in the design of channel-shortening equalizers for communications applications

Critical analysis of the eigenfilter method for the design of FIR filters and wideband beamformers

The least squares based eigenfilter method has been applied to the design of both finite impulse response (FIR) filters and wideband beamformers successfully. It involves calculating the resultant filter coefficients as the eigenvector of an appropriate Hermitian matrix, and offers lower complexity and less computation time with better numerical stability as compared to the standard least squares method. In this paper, we revisit the method and critically analyze the eigenfilter approach by revealing a serious performance issue in the passband of the designed FIR filter and the mainlobe of the wideband beamformer, which occurs due to a formulation problem. A solution is then proposed to mitigate this issue, and design examples for both FIR filters and wideband beamformers are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

On the design of real and complex fir filters with flatness and peak error constraints using semidefinite programming

This paper studies the problem of designing digital finite duration impulse response (FIR) filters with prescribed flatness and peak error constraints using semidefinite programming (SDP). SDP is a powerful convex optimization method, where linear and convex quadratic inequality constraints can readily be incorporated. This property is utilized for the optimal minimax and least squares (LS) design of linear-phase and low-delay FIR filters with prescribed magnitude flatness and peak design error, which are formulated as a set of linear equality and convex quadratic inequality constraints, respectively. A method for structurally imposing these equality constraints in the SDP formulation is also proposed. Using these results, the design approach is further extended to the design of constrained complex coefficient FIR filters and variable digital filters (VDFs). Design examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.published_or_final_versio

Design of FIR digital filters with prescribed flatness and peak error constraints using second-order cone programming

This paper studies the design of digital finite impulse response (FIR) filters with prescribed flatness and peak design error constraints using second-order cone programming (SOCP). SOCP is a powerful convex optimization method, where linear and convex quadratic inequality constraints can readily be incorporated. It is utilized in this study for the optimal minimax and least squares design of linear-phase and low-delay (LD) FIR filters with prescribed magnitude flatness and peak design error. The proposed approach offers more flexibility than traditional maximally-flat approach for the tradeoff between the approximation error and the degree of design freedom. Using these results, new LD specialized filters such as digital differentiators, Hilbert Transformers, Mth band filters and variable digital filters with prescribed magnitude flatness constraints can also be derived. © 2005 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

On the design of nearly-PR and PR FIR cosine modulated filter banks having approximate cosine-rolloff transition band

This paper proposes an efficient method for designing nearly perfect reconstruction (NPR) and perfect reconstruction (PR) cosine modulated filter banks (CMFBs) with prototype filters having an approximate cosine-rolloff (CR) transition band. It is shown that the flatness condition required for an NPR CMFB can be automatically satisfied by using a prototype filter with a CR transition band. The design problem is then formulated as a convex minimax optimization problem, and it can be solved by second-order cone programming (SOCP). By using the NPR CMFB so obtained as an initial guess to nonlinear optimizers such as Fmincon in Matlab, high-quality PR CMFBs can be obtained. The advantages of the proposed method are that it does not require a user-supplied initial guess of the prototype filter and bumps in the passband of the analysis filters can be effectively suppressed. © 2008 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Revisit of the eigenfilter method for the design of FIR filters and wideband beamformers

The least squares-based eigenfilter method has been applied to the design of both finite impulse response (FIR) filters and wideband beamformers successfully. It involves calculating the resultant filter coefficients as the eigenvector of an appropriate Hermitian matrix, and offers lower complexity and less computation time with better numerical stability as compared to the standard least squares method. In this paper, we revisit the method and critically analyse the eigenfilter method by revealing a serious performance issue in the passband of the designed FIR filter and the mainlobe of the wideband beamformer, which occurs due to a formulation problem. A solution is then proposed to mitigate this issue by imposing an additional constraint to control the response at the passband/mainlobe, and design examples for both FIR filters and wideband beamformers are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

The design of digital all-pass filters using second-order cone programming (SOCP)

This brief proposes a new method for designing digital all-pass filters with a minimax design criterion using second-order cone programming (SOCP). Unlike other all-pass filter design methods, additional linear constraints can be readily incorporated. The overall design problem can be solved through a series of linear programming subproblems and the bisection search algorithm. The convergence of the algorithm is guaranteed. Nonlinear constraints such as the pole radius constraint of the filters can be formulated as additional SOCP constraints using Rouche's theorem. It was found that the pole radius constraint allows an additional tradeoff between the approximation error and the stability margin. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by several design examples and comparison with conventional methods. © 2005 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Wideband data-independent beamforming for subarrays

The desire to operate large antenna arrays for e.g. RADAR applications over a wider frequency range is currently limited by the hardware, which due to weight, cost and size only permits complex multipliers behind each element. In contrast, wideband processing would have to rely on tap delay lines enabling digital filters for every element.As an intermediate step, in this thesis we consider a design where elements are grouped into subarrays, within which elements are still individually controlled by narrowband complex weights, but where each subarray output is given a tap delay line or finite impulse response digital filter for further wideband processing. Firstly, this thesis explores how a tap delay line attached to every subarray can be designed as a delay-and-sum beamformer. This filter is set to realised a fractional delay design based on a windowed sinc function. At the element level, we show that designing a narrowband beam w.r.t. a centre frequency of wideband operation is suboptimal,and suggest an optimisation technique that can yield sufficiently accurate gain over a frequency band of interest for an arbitrary look direction, which however comes at the cost of reduced aperture efficiency, as well as significantly increased sidelobes. We also suggest an adaptive method to enhance the frequency characteristic of a partial wideband array design, by utilising subarrays pointing in different directions in different frequency bands - resolved by means of a filter bank - to adaptively suppress undesired components in the beam patterns of the subarrays. Finally, the thesis proposes a novel array design approach obtained by rotational tiling of subarrays such that the overall array aperture is densely constructed from the same geometric subarray by rotation and translation only. Since the grating lobes of differently oriented subarrays do not necessarily align, an effective grating lobe attenuation w.r.t. the main beam is achieved. Based on a review of findings from geometry,a number of designs are highlight and transformed into numerical examples, and the theoretically expected grating lobe suppression is compared to uniformly spaced arrays.Supported by a number of models and simulations, the thesis thus suggests various numerical and hardware design techniques, mainly the addition of tap-delay-line per subarray and some added processing overhead, that can help to construct a large partial wideband array close in wideband performance to currently existing hardware.The desire to operate large antenna arrays for e.g. RADAR applications over a wider frequency range is currently limited by the hardware, which due to weight, cost and size only permits complex multipliers behind each element. In contrast, wideband processing would have to rely on tap delay lines enabling digital filters for every element.As an intermediate step, in this thesis we consider a design where elements are grouped into subarrays, within which elements are still individually controlled by narrowband complex weights, but where each subarray output is given a tap delay line or finite impulse response digital filter for further wideband processing. Firstly, this thesis explores how a tap delay line attached to every subarray can be designed as a delay-and-sum beamformer. This filter is set to realised a fractional delay design based on a windowed sinc function. At the element level, we show that designing a narrowband beam w.r.t. a centre frequency of wideband operation is suboptimal,and suggest an optimisation technique that can yield sufficiently accurate gain over a frequency band of interest for an arbitrary look direction, which however comes at the cost of reduced aperture efficiency, as well as significantly increased sidelobes. We also suggest an adaptive method to enhance the frequency characteristic of a partial wideband array design, by utilising subarrays pointing in different directions in different frequency bands - resolved by means of a filter bank - to adaptively suppress undesired components in the beam patterns of the subarrays. Finally, the thesis proposes a novel array design approach obtained by rotational tiling of subarrays such that the overall array aperture is densely constructed from the same geometric subarray by rotation and translation only. Since the grating lobes of differently oriented subarrays do not necessarily align, an effective grating lobe attenuation w.r.t. the main beam is achieved. Based on a review of findings from geometry,a number of designs are highlight and transformed into numerical examples, and the theoretically expected grating lobe suppression is compared to uniformly spaced arrays.Supported by a number of models and simulations, the thesis thus suggests various numerical and hardware design techniques, mainly the addition of tap-delay-line per subarray and some added processing overhead, that can help to construct a large partial wideband array close in wideband performance to currently existing hardware

Optimal design of magnitude responses of rational infinite impulse response filters

This correspondence considers a design of magnitude responses of optimal rational infinite impulse response (IIR) filters. The design problem is formulated as an optimization problem in which a total weighted absolute error in the passband and stopband of the filters (the error function reflects a ripple square magnitude) is minimized subject to the specification on this weighted absolute error function defined in the corresponding passband and stopband, as well as the stability condition. Since the cost function is nonsmooth and nonconvex, while the constraints are continuous, this kind of optimization problem is a nonsmooth nonconvex continuous functional constrained problem. To address this issue, our previous proposed constraint transcription method is applied to transform the continuous functional constraints to equality constraints. Then the nonsmooth problem is approximated by a sequence of smooth problems and solved via a hybrid global optimization method. The solutions obtained from these smooth problems converge to the global optimal solution of the original optimization problem. Hence, small transition bandwidth filters can be obtained