## Canonic Signed Digit (CSD) Representation of Integers

February 18, 2017

In my last post I presented Matlab code to synthesize multiplierless FIR filters using Canonic Signed Digit (CSD) coefficients.  I included a function dec2csd1.m (repeated here in Appendix A) to convert decimal integers to binary CSD values.  Here I want to use that function to illustrate a few properties of CSD numbers.

In a binary signed-digit number system, we allow each binary digit to have one of the three values {0, 1, -1}.  Thus, for example, the binary value 1 1...

## Frequency Translation by Way of Lowpass FIR Filtering

Some weeks ago a question appeared on the dsp.related Forum regarding the notion of translating a signal down in frequency and lowpass filtering in a single operation [1]. It is possible to implement such a process by embedding a discrete cosine sequence's values within the coefficients of a traditional lowpass FIR filter. I first learned about this process from Reference [2]. Here's the story.

Traditional Frequency Translation Prior To Filtering

Think about the process shown in...

## Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) - A Tutorial

Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) is one of the most spectrally efficient modulation schemes available. Due to its constant envelope, it is resilient to non-linear distortion and was therefore chosen as the modulation technique for the GSM cell phone standard.

MSK is a special case of Continuous-Phase Frequency Shift Keying (CPFSK) which is a special case of a general class of modulation schemes known as Continuous-Phase Modulation (CPM). It is worth noting that CPM (and hence CPFSK) is a...

## New Video: Parametric Oscillations

January 4, 2017

I just posted this last night.  It's kinda off-topic from the mission of the channel, but I realized that it had been months since I'd posted a video, and having an excuse to build on helped keep me on track.

## Round Round Get Around: Why Fixed-Point Right-Shifts Are Just Fine

Today’s topic is rounding in embedded systems, or more specifically, why you don’t need to worry about it in many cases.

One of the issues faced in computer arithmetic is that exact arithmetic requires an ever-increasing bit length to avoid overflow. Adding or subtracting two 16-bit integers produces a 17-bit result; multiplying two 16-bit integers produces a 32-bit result. In fixed-point arithmetic we typically multiply and shift right; for example, if we wanted to multiply some...

## Some Thoughts on Sampling

Some time ago, I came across an interesting problem. In the explanation of sampling process, a representation of impulse sampling shown in Figure 1 below is illustrated in almost every textbook on DSP and communications. The question is: how is it possible that during sampling, the frequency axis gets scaled by $1/T_s$ -- a very large number? For an ADC operating at 10 MHz for example, the amplitude of the desired spectrum and spectral replicas is $10^7$! I thought that there must be...

## Matlab Code to Synthesize Multiplierless FIR Filters

This article presents Matlab code to synthesize multiplierless Finite Impulse Response (FIR) lowpass filters.

A filter coefficient can be represented as a sum of powers of 2.  For example, if a coefficient = decimal 5 multiplies input x, the output is $y= 2^2*x + 2^0*x$.  The factor of $2^2$ is then implemented with a shift of 2 bits.  This method is not efficient for coefficients having a lot of 1’s, e.g. decimal 31 = 11111.  To reduce the number of non-zero...

## Wavelets II - Vanishing Moments and Spectral Factorization

October 11, 2016

In the previous blog post I described the workings of the Fast Wavelet Transform (FWT) and how wavelets and filters are related. As promised, in this article we will see how to construct useful filters. Concretely, we will find a way to calculate the Daubechies filters, named after Ingrid Daubechies, who invented them and also laid much of the mathematical foundations for wavelet analysis.

Besides the content of the last post, you should be familiar with basic complex algebra, the...

## Fibonacci trick

I'm working on a video, tying the Fibonacci sequence into the general subject of difference equations.

Here's a fun trick: take any two consecutive numbers in the Fibonacci sequence, say 34 and 55.  Now negate one and use them as the seed for the Fibonacci sequence, larger magnitude first, i.e.

$-55, 34, \cdots$

Carry it out, and you'll eventually get the Fibonacci sequence, or it's negative:

$-55, 34, -21, 13, -8, 5, -3, 2, -1, 1, 0, 1, 1 \cdots$

This is NOT a general property of difference...

## The Power Spectrum

October 8, 2016

Often, when calculating the spectrum of a sampled signal, we are interested in relative powers, and we don’t care about the absolute accuracy of the y axis.  However, when the sampled signal represents an analog signal, we sometimes need an accurate picture of the analog signal’s power in the frequency domain.  This post shows how to calculate an accurate power spectrum.

Parseval’s theorem [1,2] is a property of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) that...

## Compute the Frequency Response of a Multistage Decimator

Figure 1a shows the block diagram of a decimation-by-8 filter, consisting of a low-pass finite impulse response (FIR) filter followed by downsampling by 8 [1].  A more efficient version is shown in Figure 1b, which uses three cascaded decimate-by-two filters.  This implementation has the advantages that only FIR 1 is sampled at the highest sample rate, and the total number of filter taps is lower.

The frequency response of the single-stage decimator before downsampling is just...

Chances are that by now, you have had a chance to browse the new design of the *related site that I published several weeks ago.  I have been working for several months on this and I must admit that I am very happy with the results.  This new design will serve as a base for many new exciting developments. I would love to hear your comments/suggestions if you have any, please use the comments system at the bottom of this page.

First on my list would be to build and launch a new forum...

## Two Easy Ways To Test Multistage CIC Decimation Filters

This blog presents two very easy ways to test the performance of multistage cascaded integrator-comb (CIC) decimation filters [1]. Anyone implementing CIC filters should take note of the following proposed CIC filter test methods.

Introduction

Figure 1 presents a multistage decimate by D CIC filter where the number of stages is S = 3. The '↓D' operation represents downsampling by integer D (discard all but every Dth sample), and n is the time index.

If the Figure 3 filter's...

## Embedded World 2018 - More Videos!

March 27, 20181 comment

After the interview videos last week, this week I am very happy to release two more videos taken at Embedded World 2018 and that I am proud of.

For both videos, I made extensive use of my two new toys, a Zhiyun Crane Gimbal and a Sony a6300 camera.

The use of a gimbal like the Zhiyun makes a big difference in terms of making the footage look much more stable and cinematographic.

As for the Sony camera, it takes fantastic slow-motion footage and...

## Reduced-Delay IIR Filters

This blog gives the results of a preliminary investigation of reduced-delay (reduced group delay) IIR filters based on my understanding of the concepts presented in a recent interesting blog by Steve Maslen [1].

Development of a Reduced-Delay 2nd-Order IIR Filter

Maslen's development of a reduced-delay 2nd-order IIR filter begins with a traditional prototype filter, HTrad, shown in Figure 1(a). The first modification to the prototype filter is to extract the b0 feedforward coefficient...

## Multiplierless Exponential Averaging

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

y(n) = αx(n) + (1 –...

## Crowdfunding Articles?

Many of you have the knowledge and talent to write technical articles that would benefit the EE community.  What is missing for most of you though, and very understandably so, is the time and motivation to do it.

But what if you could make some money to compensate for your time spent on writing the article(s)?  Would some of you find the motivation and make the time?

I am thinking of implementing a system/mechanism that would allow the EE community to...

## Back from ESC Boston

NOT going to ESC Boston would have allowed me to stay home, in my comfort zone.

NOT going to ESC Boston would have saved me from driving in the absolutely horrible & stressful Boston traffic1.

NOT going to ESC Boston would have saved me from having to go through a full search & questioning session at the Canada Customs on my return2.

2017/06/06 update: Videos are now up!

So two days...

## A Narrow Bandpass Filter in Octave or Matlab

The design of a very narrow bandpass FIR filter, coded in either Octave or Matlab, can prove challenging if a computationally-efficient  filter is required. This is especially true if the sampling rate is high relative to the filter's center frequency. The most obvious filter design methods, using either window-based or Remez ( Parks-McClellan ) functions, can easily result in filters with many thousands of taps.

The filter to be described reduces the computational effort (and thus...

## Spread the Word and Run a Chance to Win a Bundle of Goodies from Embedded World

February 21, 2019