This blog discusses an interesting approach to exponential averaging. To begin my story, a traditional exponential averager (also called a "leaky integrator"), shown in Figure 1(a), is commonly used to reduce noise fluctuations that contaminate relatively constant-amplitude signal measurements.

Figure 1 Exponential averaging: (a) standard network; (b) single-multiply network.

That exponential averager's difference equation is

where α is a constant called the averager's weighting factor, in the range 0 < α < 1. The process requires two multiplies per y(n) output sample as shown in Figure 1(a).

As pointed out to me by Vladimir Vassilevsky (http://www.abvolt.com) we can rearrange Eq. (1) to the form

which eliminates one of the averager's multiplies, at the expense of an additional adder, giving us a single-multiply exponential averager shown in Figure 1(b). This neat single-multiply exponential averager maintains the DC (zero Hz) gain of unity exhibited by the traditional two-multiply exponential averager in Figure 1(a).

Contemplating Vassilevsky's single-multiplier exponential averager, I thought about how we could eliminate the multiplier in Figure 1(b) altogether. It is possible to eliminate the multiplier in Figure 1(b) if we place restrictions on the permissible values of α. For example, if α = 0.125 = 1/8, then the output of the multiplier is merely the multiplier's input sample shifted right by three bits.

Thus we can replace the multiplier in Figure 1(b) by a 'binary right shift by L bits' operation as shown in Figure 2(a). In that figure, the 'BRS,L' block means an arithmetic, or hard-wired, Binary Right Shift by L bits. The values for weighting factor α = 1/2^L when L is in the range 1 ≤ L ≤ 5 are shown in Figure 2(b). The available exponential averager frequency magnitude responses for those five values for α are shown in Figure 2(c). As it turns out, we can achieve greater flexibility in choosing various values of the averager's weighting factor α. Don't touch that dial!

If α takes the form

(3)

where L = 0, 1, 2, 3, ..., and M = 1, 2, 3, ..., we can replace the multiplication by α in Figure 1(b) with two binary right shifts and a subtract operation as shown in Figure 3(a).

Figure 3 Multiplierless exponential averaging: (a) multiplier-free network; (b) possible values for α when 0≤L≤5 and L+1≤M≤6; (c) available frequency magnitude responses.

For example if L = 2 and M = 5, then from Eq. (3), α = 0.2188. The sequence w(n) = 0.2188u(n) = (1/4 – 1/32)u(n) is computed by subtracting u(n) shifted right by M = 5 bits from u(n) shifted right by L = 2 bits.

The tick marks in Figure 3(b) show the possible values for the weighting factor α over the ranges of 0 ≤ L ≤ 5, where for each L, M is in the range L+1 ≤ M ≤ 6 in Eq. (3). That figure tells us that we have a reasonable selection of α values for our noise-reduction filtering applications. The available exponential averager frequency magnitude responses for those values for α are shown in Figure 3(c), where the top curve corresponds to L = 0 and M = 6 yielding α = 0.9844.

The point of this blog is, for fixed-point implementation of exponential averaging, check to see if your desired α weighting factor can be represented by the difference of various reciprocals of integer powers of two. If so, then binary word shifting enables us to implement a multiplierless exponential averager.

Yes yes, I know—you're wondering, "What about the quantization errors induced by the binary right-shift operations. Well, ...I haven't yet studied that issue.