Analog Filter Bank for Cochlear Radio

D. F. Albuquerque1 , J. M. N. Vieira1 , N. B. Carvalho2 , J. R. Pereira2

1
Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro
2
Institute of Telecommunications
Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics - University of Aveiro
3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
{dfa, jnvieira, nbcarvalho, jrp}@ua.pt

Abstract— In this paper, we propose a design for the analog
part of an Hybrid Filter Bank (HFB) system targeted to radio-
frequency (RF) signals, inspired on the mammals cochlea, with
the basilar membrane mimicked by microstrip lines. A prototype
is presented, operating from 840 MHz to 1470 MHz using
ADCs working at 210 Msps. Simulation results revealed that
it is possible to design a HFB with low values of distortion
and aliasing. With this cochlear analog front-end it is possible
to increase the bandwidth of the signal while keeping a high
dynamic range. Further developments of this technology could
fulfill the promise of Software-defined Radio to build a radio able
to deal with wideband signals.
Index Terms— Analog Filter Bank, Cochlear Radio, Hybrid
Filter Banks, Software-Defined Radio, Bio-inspired systems, Ana-
log to Digital converters.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Through natural evolution, the auditory system of mammals
has achieved a remarkable level of sophistication. Humans, in
particular, can cope with a dynamic range of 120 dB and
several octaves of bandwidth [1]. A crucial component of this
sound acquisition system is a curled tube located at the inner
ear – the cochlea. Nerve terminations inside it (the hair cells)
sense the mechanical oscillations produced along its basilar
membrane and convert them into electrical pulses.
The Hair Cells. These hair cells can be regarded as the
ADC units of the mammalian auditory system. Their firing rate
is limited. Experimental studies have shown [1] this limit to be
approximately 300 pulses per second, for the human case. In
order to convert the firing rate into an amplitude measurement,
the central auditory system must perform the integration of the
number of pulses occurring within a certain time window [1].
Even without a formal calculation of their equivalent bit
length, it is apparent that the hair cells behave as low resolution
ADCs. The key to understanding how the human auditory
system is able to deliver such amazing values of dynamic
range and bandwidth in spite of the poor ADC performance
of its hair cells is the cochlea. It works as a passive spectrum
analyzer, or, in electrical engineering terminology, an Analog
Filter Bank (AFB). In fact, depending on the frequency content
of the transmitted sound signal, vibrations are triggered at
different points along the basilar membrane.
Cochlear Radio. Current silicon technology allows the
construction of ADCs for audio applications with sampling
frequencies as high as 192 kHz and dynamic ranges of 24 bits
or even more. Due to these technological advances, a cochlear
system is not necessary for audio applications. However, sam-
pling Radio Frequency (RF) signals, whose bandwidths can be
in excess of 10 GHz, poses the same kind of problems that the
mammalian auditory system faced in its evolution. Building
an ADC operating above 20 GHz with a resolution of 16 or
24 bits would constitute a tremendous technological challenge.
In addition, such a device, if feasible, would be power hungry
and a waste of resources for most radio applications, because
they do not normally require the full bandwidth to be available
at once.
The solution proposed for this problem is inspired on that
adopted by natural evolution for the human auditory system:
a passive AFB to split the input signal in several band-pass
signals which are then converted separately to the digital
domain with lower bit resolution and sampling rate. An Hybrid
Filter Bank is then used to provide a convenient representation
of the overall signal [2].
One of the main challenges of this solution is the con-
struction of a sufficiently compact RF cochlea. We propose
a solution using microstrips lines with a series of band-pass
filters. Although only a proof of concept is provided, there is
no theoretical limitation to building a RF cochlea small enough
to be placed on a mobile communication device.
In the authors’ opinion, the RF cochlea (see block diagram
in Figure 1) will be the enabling technology for Software
Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio, because it solves
the problem of the disappeared analog tuning stages providing
access to the full bandwidth with an adequate dynamic range.
LNA RF Cochlea DSP
Fig. 1. Block Diagram of a Cochlear Radio.
II. W IDE -BAND A NALOG TO D IGITAL C ONVERSION
In the ideal SDR, the ADC directly samples and quantize the
analogue signal captured from the antenna [3]. This approach

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 Port 4 - Output 2
is extremely flexible because the signal can be processed

Port 6 - Output 4
exclusively by software. However, it is not practical with the

Port 8 - Output 6
present technology. The state of the art in ADCs has a total
bandwidth of 40 Gsps with 3 bits of resolution and consume
3.8 W [4] or 20 Gsps with 8 bits of resolution and consume
10 W [5]. As it was mentioned in the introduction, an ADC
needs to have more than 20 bits in a common handset [6]
Port 1
and the ADCs state-of-art is far way from this value. Another
Input Port 2

Port 3 - Output 1
limitation of using an ADC with a very large bandwidth is the

Port 5 - Output 3

Port 7 - Output 4
power consumption [7]. In [7] it was demonstrated that the
minimum theoretical power consumption for an ADC grows
proportionally with its bandwidth and exponentially with its Output 3
resolution. It can achieve some hundreds of Watts for sampling Port 5 1 cm
frequencies greater that one Gsps and 20 bits of resolution.
The technology evolution starts to offer ADCs with more Fig. 2. Schematic of the Analog Filter Bank.
channels without demanding more power consumption [8].
This is good news for systems based in signal channelization. 0

−10

Magnitude (dB)
−20
III. D ESIGNING A C OMPACT A NALOG F ILTER BANK
−30

The existing prototypes that try to mimic the Human cochlea −40
use passive [9] and active [10] systems. Due to the high power −50
consumption of the active systems we choose to design a S31 S41 S51 S61 S71 S81
passive system to implement the AFB. Usually the passive −60
600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
filter banks are implemented using discretized elements (Re- Frequency (MHz)
sistors, Capacitors, Inductances) [9]. However, even if we use
small size components it is difficult to build for example a Fig. 3. AFB simulator response using Port 1 as input.
20 band AFB that fits in a mobile device. So, it was decided
to use microstrip lines to implement the AFB just to have 0

a proof of concept. Further size reduction can be achieved −10

by using in a final implementation striplines and by roll up
Magnitude (dB)

−20
the substract to reduce its size or other techniques [11], [12].
Nevertheless, to test the concept it was decided to design an −30
AFB in microstrip lines that must operate from 840 MHz
−40
to 1470 MHz with 6 channels (M=6) with 105 MHz of
bandwidth. Moreover, in the prototype design, parallel coupled −50
line pass band filters theory [13] was used to design the S32 S42 S52 S62 S72 S82
−60
6 filters. The filter parameters were obtained by simulation 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
Frequency (MHz)
tuning. To test and simulate the prototype it was used the
Advanced Design System Software from Agilent, the resultant Fig. 4. AFB simulator response using Port 2 as input.
schematic is shown in Figure 2. The ports 1 and 2 can be the
input while the ports 3 to 8 are the signals output. Figure 3
shows the response of the designed filters using the Port 1 IV. T HE H YBRID F ILTER BANK
as the signal input. As can be seen the AFB separates the
input signal into 6 sub-band signals (Port 3 to Port 8) where The Hybrid Filter Bank (HFB) is inspired on the Filter Bank
it will be connected the ADCs. Figure 4 shows the response (FB) theory from the digital signal processing community.
of the designed filters using Port 2 as signal input. Again the An HFB consists in the Analysis Filter Bank (AFB) and a
AFB can separate the input signal into 6 sub-band signals. In Synthesis Filter Bank (SFB) similar to the FB (see Figure
Figure 5 is presented the response between the output ports and 7). This kind of FB is called “Hybrid” because the AFB
in Figure 6 is presented the reflection coefficient on the Port 1 is implemented in the analogue domain [14]. The AFB
and Port 2, it can be seen that the reflection coefficients are channelizes the incoming signal x(t) into M sub-bands and
equal for both ports moreover reflection coefficient are slightly the resultant signals are sampled with an ADC having a
high but practical test reveal that this reflection coefficients are sampling frequency of 2W/M , where W is the bandwidth
less than 10 dB. of the input signal. After the digitalization, the signal needs to

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 0 X(f)

−20
Amplitude (dB)

−40
ni ni+M/2
−60 TS TS
Z(f)
−80

−100

−120 0 M
600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
Frequency (MHz)
2TS
Fig. 8. Reconstruction of the original signal into to base−band.
Fig. 5. AFB simulator response between the Output Ports (3 to 8).

0 with low distortion and aliasing.

−10
V. R ESULTS
Magnitude (dB)

−20 The implemented prototype (a photo is presented in Fig-

−30 ure 9) has a very similar response to the simulation (using
Port 1 as input) as can be seen in Figure 10. The small
−40
differences can be due to the manual manufacture process,
−50 but it would not be a problem because the HFB is going to
compensate these differences. Figure 11 shows the reflection
−60
600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 coefficient in Port 1 and Port 2 as can be seen the reflection
Frequency (MHz)
coefficient is less than 10 dB in almost all the band.
Fig. 6. AFB simulator reflection coefficient in Port 1 and Port 2.
Moreover, if the signal is not limited to the band of interest,
this can an issue, mainly due to the other spectral components
AFB SFB after the 1800 MHz. This issue can be overcame with a first-
x0(t) y0[n] z0[k] order low pass filter or others techniques [15], [16].
H0(s) ADC M F0(z)

x(t) x1(t) y1[n] z1[k] z[k]

LNA
H1(s) ADC M F1(z)

xM-1(t) yM-1[n] zM-1[k]

HM-1(s) ADC M FM-1(z)

Fig. 7. Diagram of the Hybrid Filter Bank.

be interpolated in order to accommodate the resultant signal,

z[k], bandwidth after the SFB [14]. The SFB has the main
goal of archiving perfect reconstruction of the several signals
into just one signal (z[k]). This way, the HFB behaves like a
perfect delay for the desired bandwidth. Moreover the HFB
can introduce a frequency shift of the smallest frequency of
the input signal in order to reduce the sampling frequency of
the resultant signal z[k] as it is shown in Figure 8.
The HBF theory from [2] can be used to obtain the SFB
that combined with the designed AFB, can convert the input
signal x(t) (from 840 MHz to 1470 MHz) into a digital
representation of it z[k] in the base-band (from 0 MHz to
630 MHz). Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider that the
input signal is band limited from 840 MHz to 1470 MHz and
the ADCs are ideal. Therefore, it was proved in [2] that it
is possible to reconstruct a digital version of the input signal
Fig. 9. Photo of the Analog Filter Bank prototype.
To test this concept it was used the AFB’s responses
given by the designed AFB, plotted in Figure 3, with a total
bandwidth of 630 MHz, therefore, it was considered that the
ADCs have 210 MHz of sampling frequency Ts = 4.8 ns.
Using a resolution of 15 MHz (N = 84) to sample the AFB
and using in the SFB, FIR filters with 64 coefficients it was
obtained -33 dB of mean aliasing (aliasing is defined as the
amount of distortion introduced by the HFB in the output)
and -35 dB of mean distortion (distortion is defined as how
must the HFB response differs from the ideal response, just
a simple delay). Using a FIR filters with 128 coefficients it
was obtained about -300 dB of aliasing and distortion. The

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 0 0

−10
−100
Magnitude (dB)

Amplitude (dB)
−20

−30 −200

−40
−300
−50 Aliasing
S31 S41 S51 S61 S71 S81 Distortion
−60 −400
600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 −600 −400 −200 0 200 400 600
Frequency (MHz) Frequency (MHz)

Fig. 10. AFB prototype response using Port 1 as input. Fig. 13. Distortion and aliasing introduced by the HFB using a 128
coefficients FIR filter.
0

−10 rate and large dynamic range. By implementing an AFB using

Magnitude (dB)

−20 microstrip we show that it would be possible to achieve a

compact solution. Moreover, we also show that using HFB it
−30 could be possible to construct a digital version of the signal
−40 with low distortion and aliasing.
−50 S11 R EFERENCES
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