International Journal of Computer & Communication Engineering Research (IJCCER)

Volume 2 - Issue 3 May 2014

Design Technique of Lowpass FIR filter using Various

Window Function
Aparna Tiwari, Vandana Thakre, Karuna Markam
Deptt. Of ECE,M.I.T.S. Gwalior, M.P, India
Abstract- There are various sophisticated Computer Aided
Design tools are available to make the digital filter fast and
power efficient. Filter design and analysis tool (FDA) is one of
the Computer Aided Design tool available with MATLAB
which enables design of the digital filter blocks faster and more
accurate Finite Impulse Response , filters are one of the
primary types of filters used in Digital S ignal Processing. For
the design of Low pass FIR filters complex calculations are
required.Mathematically, by substituting the values of Pass
band, transition width, pass band ripple, stop band
attenuation, sampling frequency in any of the methods from
window method, frequency sampling method or optimal
method we can get the values of filter coefficients h(n).For
removing noise or cancellation of noise we use various type of
digital filter.In this paper we propose design technique of
lowpass FIR filter using various type of window function using
Hamming, Hann ,Rectangular window and Kaiser window and
will analyse these windows behaviour in higher order. Kaiser
window is the best window function in FIR filter design. Using
this window we can realize that FIR filter is simple and fast.

Keywords: FIR filter, LTI, lowpass filter, MATLAB

frequency passband and reject the frequency other than the

passband specification. Then the filtered signal can be
further used for the signal feature ext raction. Filtering can
also be applied to perform applications such as noise
reduction, frequency boosting, digital audio equalizing, and
digital crossover, among others.

II. FIR DIGITAL FILTER

2.1 Basic Concept of FIR filte: The basic structure of FIR
filter consists of mu ltip liers, delay elements and adders to
create the filters output. The difference equation of N order
of the recursive digital filters (FIR) can be represented as:

Where, y (n) is the output signal, h(n) is the filter coefficients

and k is the order of the filters.

I. INTRODUCTION
The developments in electronic technology are taking
place at a tremendous speed. Recently, Digital Signal
Processing (DSP) is used in numerous applications such as
video compression, digital set-top box, cable modems,
digital versatile disk, portable video systems/computers,
digital audio, mult imedia and wireless communications,
digital rad io, digital still and network cameras, speech
processing, transmission systems, radar imag ing, acoustic
beam formers, global positioning systems, and biomedical
signal processing. The field of DSP has always been driven
by the advances in DSP applications and in scaled Very Large-Scale-Integrated (VLSI) [1] technologies . In different
areas digital filter design techniques are widely used. The
digital filter consist of both software and hardware
implementation. In the digital filter, the input and output
signals are digital or d iscrete time sequence. Digital filters
[3] are linear t ime invariant (LTI) systems which are
characterized by unit sample response. These filters are
portable and highly flexib le. It has minimu m or neglig ible
interference noise and other effects. In storage and
maintenance digital filters are easier. Digital filters reduce
the failure time. Digital filters are categorized in two parts as
fin ite impulse response (FIR)[6] and infin ite impulse
response (IIR)[2]. In comparison to IIR filters, the FIR
filters have greater flexib ility to control the shape of their
1
magnitude response. According to the frequency
characteristics digital filter can be divided-lowpass,
highpass, bandpass, and bandstop. The realization of FIR
filter is non-recursive in comparison to IIR filter. Bandpass
filtering plays an important role in DSP applicat ions. It can
be used to pass the signals according to the specified
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Figure.1: N-order FIR digital filter block d iagram

We can express the output signal in frequency do main by
convolution of the input signal x(n) and the impulse
response h(n).
Y (n ) = x (n)*h (n)
The output signal is determined as,

In differential equation, the coefficient equals to

the successive value h (n) of unit-sample response.
The system function H (z) can be expressed as:

H (z) is polynomial of . .This means that all poles are

only plotted at the origin of the Z-plane.
FIR filters can be designed in different ways, for
examp le window method, frequency sampling method,
weighted least squares method, min imax method and
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Aparna Tiwari, et al International Journal of Co mputer and Co mmunicat ion Engineering Research [Vo lu me 2, Issue 3 May 2014]
equiripple method. Out of these methods, the window
technique is most conventional method for designing FIR
filters.
2.2 Window function method of FIR filter design: The
basic design principles of window function are to calculate
(n) by the anti-Fourier transform based on the ideal
demanded filter frequency response
formula of (n) is shows as

The

Because (n) is infin itely long, we have to deal with it

by window function to get to the unit impulse response h
(n). Now it is written as

Where w (n) is the window function. Fixed window and

adjustable window are the two categories of window
function. Blackman window, Hanning, Hamming and
rectangular window are mostly used fixed window
function. Kaiser window is a type of adjustable window
function.
2.2.1 Hanning window: The Hanning window is a raised
cosine window and can be used to reduce the side lobes
while preserving a good frequency resolution compared to
the rectangular window. The hanning window is defined as

The parameter determines the shape of the window

and thus controls the trade-off between main-lobe
width and side-lobe amplitude.

III.

FIR FILTERDESIGN USING FDA TOOL

The Filter Design and Analysis (FDA) tool works with

MATLAB and the signal processing toolbox to provide a
complete environment for start to finish filter design.
The FDA tool supports many advanced techniques not
available in SP tool. FDA tool is used to design filters,
quantize filter, analyze filter, mod ify existing filter designs,
realize simulin k models of quantized direct form FIR filters.
3.1 Filter Specifications: Where W (n) is the window
function. Fixed window, in proposed method we have
taken Blackman window, Hanning, Hamming and
rectangular window and Kaiser window .We analysed using
different orders and compared all windows behaviour in higher
order.
Table 1: Filter Specificat ion
Paramaeters

Filter Type

FIR w

Design method
Filter order
Cut-off frequency

IV. RESULT AND SIMULATION

2.2.2 Hamming window : The hamming window is, like
the Hanning window, also a raised cosine window. The
hamming window exh ibits similar characteristics to the
Hanning window but further suppress the first side lobe.
The hamming window is defined as

From table 1 we analyzed the filter using Blackman

window by FDA tool in the MATLAB and the response of
the filter is given in figure 2,3 and 4 respectively at the order
35, 42 and 50.

2.2.3 Rectangular window: The rectangular window is

sometimes known as a Dirichlet window.
Its ideal
frequency response is smeared out by a sinc -like
function.

2.2.4 Kaiser window: The Kaiser window with parameter

is defined as
Figure.2: FIR Rectangular window (N=35)

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Figure.3: FIR Rectangular window (N=42)

Figure.5 FIR Hamming window (N=35)

Figure.4: FIR Rectangular window (N=50)

Figure.6: FIR Hamming window (N=42)

4.2 Hamming Window: We analyzed the filter using

Hamming
window or fixed widow by FDA tool in the
MATLAB and the response of the filter is given in figure 5,
6 and 7 respectively at the order 35, 42 and 50.

Figure 7: FIR Hamming window (N=50)

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4.3 Hanning Window: We analyzed the filter using Hanning window or fixed widow by FDA tool in the MATLA B and the
response of the filter is given in figure 8, 9 and 10 respectively at the order 35, 42 and 50.

Figure.8: FIR Hanning window (N=35)

Figure.9: FIR Hanning window (N=42)

Figure.10: FIR Hanning window (N=50)

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4.4 Kaiser Window: We analyzed the filter using Kaiser window by FDA tool in the MATLAB and the response of the filt er
is given in figure 11, 12 and 13 respectively at the order 35, 42 and 50.

Figure.11: FIR Kaiser window (N=35)

Figure.12: FIR Kaiser window (N=42)

Figure.13: FIR Kaiser window (N=50)

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Table 2: Co mparison between different window techniques
Window
techni que
Rectangular
Window
Hamming
Window
Hanning
Window
Kaiser (=3.2)
Window

Order of
the filter
35
42
50
35
42
50
35
42
50
35
42
50

Normalised
trainsition wi dth of
main l obe
0.0250
0.0209
0.01764
0.09166
0.07674
0. 06470
0.08611
0.07209
0.006078
0.06199
0.05190
0.04375

Fro m the table 2 we can see that as the order of the

FIR filter increases the number of the side lobes also
increases and width of the main lobe is decreased, that it is
tending to sharp cut off that is the width of the main lobe
decreased. If the width of the main lobe reduces then the
number of the side lobes g ets increased. So there should be
a compro mise between attenuation of side lobes and
width of main lobe. On comparing all methods, the Hann
has the smallest side lobes at any order but the width of the
main lobe is increased. In the Kaiser window for the lower
order the width of the major lobe is less than the other
windows except rectangular window but as rectangular
window passband gain is one and magnitude of sidelobes
doesnt considerably suprresd (stopband attenuation near
main lobe), it dont preferably used. For Kaiser window it is
genrally greater than 50 db and depends on formula 20log(), wher is stopband ripple.
The Kaiser window g ives best result. Therefore it is most
commonly used window for FIR filter design.

V. CONCLUSION
Dig ital filter can play a major role in speech signal
processing applications such as , speech filtering, speech
enhancement, noise reduction and automatic speech
recognition. The kaiser window gives the minimu m
Normalised transition width of mainlobe 0.04375 after
Rectangular window but as it has
lowest stopband
attenuation cant preferably used an d as Kais er wind o w
h as bett er s to pb an d att enu at ion (>50 d b ) for filter order
50 wh ich means this window has less transition width and
introduces more ripple.

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No. of side lobes

8
10
13
10
13
14
9
10
11
10
11
14

Mi nimum stopband
attenuation
-21 db

-53 db

-44 db

> -50db

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