1

Design of Digital Filters Using Genetic Algorithms

Sabbir U. Ahmad and Andreas Antoniou
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Victoria
P.O. Box 3055, Victoria, B.C., CANADA, V8W 3P6
e-mail: sahmad@ece.uvic.ca, aantoniou@ieee.org

Abstract In recent years, genetic algorithms began to be

used in many disciplines such as pattern recognition, robotics,
biology, and medicine to name just a few. These optimization
algorithms are based on Darwins principle of natural selection
which happens to be a slow process and, as a result, these
algorithms tend to require a large amount of computation.
However, they offer certain advantages as well over classical
gradient-based optimization algorithms such as steepest-descent
and Newton-type algorithms. For example, having located local
suboptimal solutions they can discard them in favor of more
promising local solutions and, therefore, they are more likely
to obtain optimal global solutions in multimodal problems. By
contrast, classical optimization algorithms though very efficient,
they are not equipped to discard inferior local solutions in favour
of more optimal ones.
This article will explore the use of genetic algorithms for the
design of several types of digital filters as follows:
1) Design of fractional-delay FIR filters
2) Design of digital IIR equalizers
3) Design of multiplierless FIR filters
4) Design of asymmetric FIR filters
5) Design of IIR filters along with a least-squares method
The paper will present design methodologies, typical design
examples, and experimental results obtained recently, as well as
comparisons with similar designs obtained with classical methods.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Like most other engineering problems, the design of digital
filters involves multiple, often conflicting, design criteria and
specifications, and finding an optimum design is, therefore, not
a simple task. Analytic or simple iterative methods usually
lead to sub-optimal designs. Consequently, there is a need
for optimization-based methods that can be use to design
digital filters that would satisfy prescribed specifications [1][3]. However, optimization problems formulated for designing
digital filters are often complex, and highly nonlinear and
multimodal in nature. Ideally, the optimization method should
lead to the global optimum of the objective function with
a minimum amount of computation. Classical optimization
methods are generally fast and efficient, and have been found
to work reasonably well for the design of digital filters [1].
These methods are very good in locating local minima but
unfortunately, they are not equipped to discard inferior local
solutions in favor of better ones.
In recent years, a variety of optimization algorithms have
been proposed based on the mechanics of natural selection and
0 This research is part of the doctoral research of the first author.
c by S. U. Ahmad, 2006.
Copyright

genetics [4], which have come to be known collectively as genetic algorithms (GAs). While these algorithms tend to require
a large amount of computation, they also offer certain unique
features with respect to classical gradient-based algorithms.
For example, having located local suboptimal solutions, GAs
can discard them in favour of more promising subsequent local
solutions and, therefore, in the long run they are more likely to
obtain better solutions for multimodal problems. When applied
to design, these algorithms can be programmed to discard
designs with inferior features or undesirable characteristics.
Because of these reasons, GAs are more likely to yield better,
possibly global optimal, solutions in the design of various
types of digital filters.
GAs are stochastic search methods that can be used to
search for an optimal solution to the evolution function of
an optimization problem [5]. Holland proposed genetic algorithms in the early seventies [6] as computer programs that
mimic the natural evolutionary process. De Jong extended the
GAs to functional optimization [7] and a detailed mathematical
model of a GA was presented by Goldberg in [4].
GAs manipulate a population of individuals in each generation (iteration) where each individual, termed as the chromosome, represents one candidate solution to the problem.
Within the population, fit individuals survive to reproduce
and their genetic materials are recombined to produce new
individuals as offsprings. The genetic material is modelled by
some data structure, most often a finite-length of attributes. As
in nature, selection provides the necessary driving mechanism
for better solutions to survive. Each solution is associated
with a fitness value that reflects how good it is, compared
with other solutions in the population. The recombination
process is simulated through a crossover mechanism that
exchanges portions of data strings between the chromosomes.
New genetic material is also introduced through mutation that
causes random alterations of the strings. The frequency of
occurrence of these genetic operations is controlled by certain
pre-set probabilities. The selection, crossover, and mutation
processes as illustrated in Fig. 1 constitute the basic GA cycle
or generation, which is repeated until some pre-determined
criteria are satisfied. Through this process, successively better
and better individuals of the species are generated.
With the increasing computing power offered by advancements in integrated circuit technology, the simulation of evolutionary systems is becoming more and more tractable and GAs
are being applied to many real world problems including the
design of digital filters. The earliest use of GAs to any kind of

N ew population

O ld population

Selection
G enetic O perations
C rossover

Fig. 1.

M utation

Fitness
Evaluation

Basic GA cycle.

filter design dates back to the eighties when it was applied for
the design of adaptive IIR filters [8]. In later years, researchers
have applied this powerful algorithm for the design of various
types of FIR and IIR filters including cascade, parallel, and
fixed-point filters [9]-[24].
In this article, we consider the application of the GA
approach to the design of several types of digital filters. In each
case, the coefficients of the filter are treated as chromosomes
which are optimized by the GA to obtain a filter that would
satisfy prescribed specifications. We do not present a detailed
study on GAs since a rich literature is available on that subject.
Instead, we offer a quick guide into the application of GAs to
filter design. The article is organized as follows. In Section II,
a simple GA for designing fractional-delay FIR filters based
on the Farrow structure is presented. A GA-based method for
designing IIR delay equalizers is described in Section III. In
Section IV, a GA-based method for designing cascade FIR
filters with discrete coefficients is described. A multiobjective
GA for designing asymmetric FIR filters is presented in
Section V. A hybrid approach for designing IIR filters using a
GA along with a least-squares method is presented in Section
VI, and conclusions are drawn in Section VII.
II. F RACTIONAL D ELAY FIR F ILTERS
The design of fractional delay (FD) FIR filters based on a
GA exploits the advantages of a global search technique to
determine the coefficients of an FD FIR filter based on the
Farrow structure (FS) [25].
FD digital filters with tunable delay characteristics are often
needed to adjust fractional delays introduced in many signal
processing applications such as speech coding and synthesis,
sampling-rate conversion, time-delay estimation, and analogto-digital conversion [26]. In general, it is desirable that the
FD be tunable on-line without redesigning the filter and the
structure used should be suitable for real-time applications.
FD filters based on the FS, referred to hereafter as FDFS filters, are commonly designed by using least-squares (LS) [26]
or weighted LS techniques [27]. Linear programming methods
have also been used to obtain optimal minimax solutions for
such filters [28]. However, like the design problems associated
with many other types of digital filters, that of FDFS filters is
a nonlinear optimization problem. Furthermore, the difficulty
of the optimization task is compounded by the multimodal
nature of the optimization problem.
In the proposed GA approach, an FS comprising a number
of parallel subfilters of the same length is optimized to approximate a fractional delay that is tunable over a desired frequency

range. The usual symmetry condition imposed on the filter

coefficients for strict phase linearity [1] is removed and the
values of the coefficients are optimized with a GA so as to
achieve an approximately linear phase response with respect
to a prescribed passband. The filter coefficients are encoded as
binary strings and, as a consequence, a quantization-error-free
hardware implementation is assured. The algorithm developed
entails a concurrent optimization approach for all subfilter
coefficients instead of a sequential approach, which leads to
improved efficiency.
Ideally, an FD filter is required to have a constant amplitude
response of unity and a phase response that is linear with
respect to some prescribed passband, say, 0 p ,
where p is the passband edge. Such a design can be achieved
by using an L -norm error measure to formulate a discrete
weighted sum objective function from the approximation errors of amplitude and phase delay. The minimization of such
objective function yields a minimax solution. An LS solution
presented in [26] is used in binary encoded form as a seed in
the initial population of the GA approach.
The proposed GA was used to design several FDFS filters.
The desired specifications and the results obtained for two
designs are listed in rows 1 to 3 of Table I. The filter
coefficients were encoded in terms of 16-bit binary strings with
initial crossover and mutation probabilities of 0.5 and 0.05,
respectively, and a population size of 48 was assumed. An
objective function based on the maximum amplitude-response
and phase delay errors, a and d , respectively, was then
minimized, where maximum error is the largest value of the
absolute error in the frequency range of interest obtained for
various values of the delay . The coefficients obtained using
the LS method were quantized to the same precision as the
binary GA coefficients in order to provide a fair comparison.
The values of a and d for the GA and LS methods are
given in rows 4 to 7. The results show that the GA approach
leads to improvements over the LS designs by providing
lower maximum amplitude and delay errors. Reductions in
the maximum amplitude-response and delay errors ranges of
27.0 to 29.5% and 25.0 to 60.6%, respectively, were achieved.
The amplitude-response and delay characteristic obtained with
the GA for example 1 are plotted in Fig. 2.
TABLE I
R ESULTS OF D ESIGN E XAMPLES

Normalized bandwidth of interest

Number of FIR subfilters
Length of each subfilter
a , LS method
a , GA method
d , LS method
d , GA method
Number of generations for GA
Computation time, LS
Computation time, GA

Example 1
0.6
3
9
2.465 103
1.80 103
3.721 103
2.790 103
83
0.265 sec
111.20 sec

Example 2
0.8
3
13
16.401 103
11.568 103
19.176 103
7.557 103
69
0.266 sec
103.11 sec

III. IIR G ROUP D ELAY E QUALIZERS

A GA-based optimization approach for designing IIR delay
equalizers has been developed. In the proposed approach, chro-

=0
1

0.9

AMPLITUDE

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

= 0.5
0.2
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

0.7

0.8

0.9

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(a)

4.5

PHASE DELAY

4.4

4.3

4.2

4.1

3.9
0

= 0.5

= 0.4

= 0.3

= 0.2

= 0.1

=0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Amplitude response and (b) phase delay of optimized FDFS filter
for Example 1.

mosomes are constructed in terms of the equalizer coefficients

in decimal form. The required equalizer is built by adding new
second-order sections until the desired accuracy is achieved.
A delay equalizer is an allpass filter that can be cascaded
with an IIR filter to equalize the group delay of the filter [1].
Due to the unity amplitude response of the allpass filter, only
the group delay characteristic differs from that of the original
filter. By proper selection of its coefficients, an allpass filter
can be designed such that the summed group delay for the
combined filter is reasonably flat in the passband region.
Usually, the equalizer is designed through the use of classical gradient-based optimization methods [1], [29], [30]. QuasiNewton methods are generally fast and efficient, and have been
found to work reasonably well for the design of equalizers
[1]. However, the stability of the equalizers obtained is not
guaranteed and the quality of the solutions obtained depends
heavily on the initial points used. Consequently, several de-

signs using different starting points might be required to

obtain a stable design [1]. The problem is compounded by
the highly nonlinear and multimodal nature of the objective
function. Alternatively, the flexibility and robustness of search
based GAs and their ability to discard undesirable features, for
example, unstable designs can be exploited to obtain stable
delay equalizers.
In the proposed GA approach, chromosomes are constructed
in matrix form with each column representing the coefficients
of an equalizer section in decimal form to avoid very long
strings. The GA minimizes an objective function based on
a parameter Q which is the percentage difference between
the maximum passband group delay and the average group
delay relative to the average group delay [1]. The traditional
crossover technique is replaced by an adaptive perturbation
technique whereby the elements of a parent chromosome are
perturbed by small amounts to obtain an offspring. Adaptivity
is achieved by introducing a factor to control the level of perturbation. Initially, relatively large perturbations are applied.
As time advances, the level of perturbation is reduced exponentially. The idea behind this approach is that at the beginning
when a large region needs to be explored, bigger steps are
used to enable the algorithm to ignore small bumps and avoid
shallow minima. When a good solution is approached, smaller
steps are used to ensure that an accurate solution is achieved.
The algorithm developed entails a sequential optimization
approach whereby new second-order equalizer sections are
added until the desired amount of equalization is achieved
[1]. The proposed GA can achieve stable delay equalizers
that would satisfy arbitrary prescribed specifications with the
desired degree of group-delay flatness.
The GA was used to design a number of equalizers for
elliptic filters satisfying a variety of loss specifications including an equalizer for a bandpass elliptic filter satisfying
the following specifications is presented: maximum passband
ripple and minimum stopband attenuation of 1 and 40 dB,
respectively, lower and upper stopband edges of 0.2 and 0.7
rad/s, respectively, lower and upper passband edges of 0.3 and
0.5 rad/s, respectively, and sampling frequency of 2.0 rad/s.
The probabilities of occurrence of crossover and mutation
were 0.9 and 0.05, respectively, and a population size of 48
was assumed. The results obtained are listed in Table II and
the group delay characteristics are plotted in Fig. 3. Initially,
a one-section equalizer was optimized and the number of
equalizer sections was increased by one successively to five in
order to reduce the parameter Q to a value less than 2%. The
number of equalizer sections and the corresponding values of
Q for the equalized filter are listed in columns 1 and 2 of Table
II, respectively, and the coefficients of the 5-section equalizer
achieved are listed in columns 3 and 4.
IV. M ULTIPLIERLESS FIR F ILTERS IN C ASCADE F ORM
This section presents a method for the design of discretecoefficient, multiplierless, FIR filters. The method exploits a
recently-introduced genetic algorithm based on the so-called
experimental design technique [31] to determine the fixedpoint coefficients of FIR filters, where the effects of finite

TABLE II
R ESULTS OF D ESIGN E XAMPLE OF G ROUP D ELAY E QUALIZER
Filter +
j-Section
Equalizer
Qj
52.4642
27.6100
9.0519
4.4632
2.2807
1.9549

j
0
1
2
3
4
5

5-Section Equalizer Coefficients

c0j
0.71228041077324
0.78308769123641
0.68965462746457
0.64793823451307
0.15625410319635

c1j
0.29184156867574
0.86568679493568
0.56219090392506
0.13453787691371
0.18369154079264

FILTER GROUP DELAY

20
10
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

0.7

0.8

0.9

EQUALIZER GROUP DELAY

40
GROUP DELAY

0.3

20
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

FILTEREQUALIZER COMBINED GROUP DELAY

40
20
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

FILTEREQUALIZER COMBINED GROUP DELAY IN PASSBAND

36.5
36
35.5
35

pi (n) = |ci (n)|

(1)

di (n) = sgn[ci (n)] [1, 0, 1]

(2)

the coefficient can be represented in SOPOT terms as

h(n) =

0.3

Fig. 3.

have developed a method based on a recently introduced,

more robust and statistically sound form of GA, namely,
the orthogonal genetic algorithm (OGA) [47], [48]. In this
method, the crossover operation generates a small but representative sample of potential offsprings scattered uniformly
over the feasible solution space. This enables the algorithm
to scan that space once to locate good offsprings for further
exploration in subsequent generations. The OGA approach is
applied to a cascade FIR realization, where each coefficient is
represented by an SOPOT. Two direct-form cascaded subfilters
are optimized sequentially.
The transfer function of a linear-phase symmetric FIR filter
can be represented by a mirror-image polynomial [1]. An evenorder transfer function with distinct roots can be decomposed
into a cascade of second- or fourth-order subfilters by finding
the roots of the transfer function. Two longer subfilters can be
formed by selecting the second- or fourth-order subfilters in a
way such that their zeros are interleaved [35].
If the allowable range for a SOPOT term ci (n) is [S, S],
where S a positive number and i = {1, . . . , I}, so that

0.32

0.34

0.36

0.38

0.4

(rad/s)

0.42

0.44

0.46

0.48

0.5

Group delay equalization of an elliptic bandpass filter.

word-length are minimized by considering the filter as a

cascade of two sections.
When digital filters are implemented on a computer or in
terms of special purpose hardware, each filter coefficient is
stored in a register of finite length and arithmetic operations
are usually carried out by using adders and multipliers. If the
coefficients can be expressed in terms of sums of powers of
two (SOPOT), multiplications can be carried out by simply
using adders and data shifters and in this way a so-called
multiplierless hardware implementation can be achieved. Multiplierless systems are very effective in terms of area, delay,
and power compared to systems that use general multipliers
[32].
The design of discerete-coefficient filters has been a topic
of special interest for the past three decades [33]-[46]. The
simplest and most widely used solution to the problem is
to round or truncate the coefficients to a fixed-bit representation. Simple designs using signed powers of two (POT)
and canonical signed-digit number representations have been
reported by researchers [33], [34]. However, the designs so
obtained are not optimal. Some GA approaches have been
introduced based on simple genetic search techniques but
these have achieved limited success [14], [46]. To address
the problem of the design of discrete-coefficient filters, we

I
X

di (n)2pi (n) .

i=1

Restricting the maximum number of POT terms in a SOPOT

coefficient to two, the OGA minimizes the amplitude-response
error to obtain the optimized coefficients. The optimization can
be carried out by minimizing an objective function based on
one, two, or more criteria. One could, for example, use either
the L2 - or L -norm for all frequency bands or the L -norm
for passbands and the L2 -norm for stopbands depending on
the application.
The integer-valued parameters ci (n) in Eqn. (1)-(2) define
the structure of a chromosome for the optimization process. To
perform crossover, a set of randomly selected chromosomes
are used as rows in a matrix. An orthogonal array is then
applied as a mask to re-distribute the chromosome elements
in that group [31]. Repeating the process of grouping and
masking, a population-wide crossover can be achieved. Mutation is then applied simply by flipping the signs of some
gene(s) chosen at random.
For the initialization of the algorithm, a direct-form FIR filter designed by using the Remez algorithm [1] is decomposed
into two subfilters and the coefficients of the two subfilters are
rounded to SOPOT terms. The resulting coefficients are used
to construct a chromosome string, which is used as seed in the
initial population of the OGA. The remaining chromosomes
are created randomly. In each successive generation, half of
the chromosomes are taken from the best fits of the previous
generation and the rest are generated randomly. The OGA is
terminated if it fails to improve the best fitness value after
a specified number of successive generations or after a prespecified maximum number of generations are performed.

R ESULTS OF D ESIGN

TABLE III
E XAMPLES OF M ULTIPLIERLESS FIR F ILTERS

Normalized
band edges
Filter length
Initial
cascade design
Design using
single-criterion oGA
Design using
multi-criteria oGA
Remez
direct-form filter

p , rad/s
a , rad/s
N
p , dB
a , dB
p , dB
a , dB
p , dB
a , dB
p , dB
a , dB

Ex. IV-A
0.35
0.5
15+13=28
0.2286
34.2971
0.1690
36.5319
0.1050
37.6996
0.1741
30.1483

Ex. IV-B
0.15
0.25
17+17=34
0.2669
26.628
0.2030
29.405
0.2045
29.134
0.1740
24.030

V. M ULTIOBJECTIVE GA FOR A SYMMETRIC FIR F ILTERS

A GA-based method for the design of asymmetric FIR filters
with arbitrary amplitude and group delay specifications has
been developed. The method employs a multiobjective optimization approach to obtain so-called Pareto-optimal solutions
[49]. A specially tailored nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) [50] is used for the design.
FIR filters are usually designed with symmetric coefficients
to achieve linear phase response with respect to the baseband.
However, symmetric coefficients also result in large group
delays. FIR filters with asymmetric coefficients that have a
linear phase response with respect to the passband(s) as well as
arbitrary amplitude response with respect to the baseband can
be designed with optimization, and a number of optimization
methods have been proposed for this purpose [51]-[56]. Most
of these methods are based on a single error criterion for

20

Optimized Cascade FIR

Initial Cascade FIR
Equivalent direct form FIR

10

0.2
0.1
0
0.1

0.2

AMPLITUDE ( dB)

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

10

20

30

40

50

60

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(a)

20

Optimized cascade FIR

Initial cascade FIR
Equivalent direct form FIR

10

0.2
0.1
0
0.1

0.2
0

AMPLITUDE (dB)

Eventually, the best chromosome is selected as the desired

solution.
The algorithm developed entails a sequential optimization
approach for the SOPOT coefficients of the two cascaded
subfilters. It is implemented by optimizing the coefficients of
one of the two subfilters using the OGA while keeping the
coefficients of the other subfilter constant. Then the coefficients of the second subfilter are optimized while keeping the
coefficients of the first subfilter constant, and so on, until the
objective function cannot be improved any further.
The OGA was used to design two cascade FIR filters
with SOPOT coefficients. The desired passband and stopband
edges, p and a , in rad/s, and the filter lengths are given in
rows 1 to 3 of Table III. The results achieved are summarized
in rows 4 to 11 of Table III where p and a represent the
maximum passband ripple and minimum stopband attenuation,
respectively, both in dB. Rows 10 and 11 give the results
obtained using the Remez method but with the coefficients
rounded to the same number of bits. The results show that the
use of the GA approach leads to improvements over the initial
cascade and the equivalent direct-form Remez designs with
the coefficients rounded to SOPOT values in each case. The
amplitude responses obtained with the initial cascade, OGA
optimized, and Remez direct-form filters for example IV-A
are plotted in Fig. 4.

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

10

20

30

40

50

60

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(b)
Fig. 4. Amplitude response of a 28 tap cascade form filter optimized with
(a) single and (b) multiobjective criteria (Ex. IV-A).

all frequency bands, which may involve the L -, or L2 norm. However, the exclusive use of one of these error criteria
may not produce a truly optimum design as required by
the application of interest [54]. Since the minimization of
the maximum amplitude distortion is important for passband
frequencies, the L -norm is appropriate for the passband. In
many applications, especially where narrow-band filters are
used, minimization of both the gain and total energy in the
stopband is important. Hence in applications of this type, an
error measure based on the L2 -norm with a constraint on
the maximum amplitude-response error is more suitable for
the stopbands [54]. To achieve phase response specifications,
a group-delay error criterion can also be included as an
optimization objective. Consequently, such a design problem
would entail multiple optimization criteria requiring simultaneous optimization of several objective functions. With such a
multiobjective formulation, there is generally no single design

VI. H YBRID GLSA A PPROACH FOR IIR F ILTERS

A hybrid approach for the design of infinite-duration impulseresponse (IIR) filters using a GA along with a least-squares
method referred to hereafter as the GLS algorithm (GLSA) has
been developed. This approach combines the fast convergence
and accuracy of a gradient-descent technique, such as a QuasiNewton (QN) algorithm, together with the flexibility and
reliability of a GA. Also its capacity in ignoring shallow local
minima.
Optimization-based methods used for designing IIR digital
filters offer a design framework in which a variety of design

20
1
0.5
10
0
0.5
0

AMPLITUDE (dB)

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

10

20

30

40

50

60

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(a)

10.25

10.2

10.15

10.1

GROUP DELAY

that has best fiteness values with respect to all objectives. To

solve problems of this type, we introduce a multiobjective GA
that will yield a compromise solution on the basis of tradeoffs
between competing objectives.
In this project, an NSGA-based approach is proposed to find
Pareto-optimal solutions for the FIR filters designed to have
arbitrary amplitude and delay characteristics. Multiobjective
GAs differ from GAs based on a single objective function
mostly on the fitness assignment and selection strategies while
their basic structures are similar. In the proposed approach,
decimal-valued filter coefficients are used for chromosome
construction to avoid very long binary strings. Three individual objective functions based on the passband and stopband
amplitude-response errors and on the passband group delay
error are used, and a limit is imposed as a constraint on the
maximum group delay. The group delay error is measured
in terms of the maximum percentage difference between the
passband group delay error and the average group delay,
which is designated as Q (see Chap. 16 in [1]). Values of the
objective functions are first calculated for each member of the
population. Then the individuals are evaluated in terms of socalled dummy fitness values [4] instead of their actual objective
fitness to maintain diversity and assure nondominance in the
evolving solutions. In the NSGA, the population is classified
at first on the basis of an individuals nondomination level,
and then the sharing function method is used to assign fitness
to each individual [50].
The NSGA was used to design an asymmetric filter of length
23 with normalized passband and stopband edges of 0.25 and
0.4, respectively. The weighted LS (WLS) solution presented
in [52] was used as seed in the initial population of the GA
approach. The crossover and mutation probabilities were assumed to be 0.9 and 1/N (N = filter length), respectively, and
the population size was set to 70. The results obtained, which
are plotted in Fig. 5, show that NSGA leads to improvements
over the WLS design by providing a lower passband ripple and
a higher stopband attenuation. The method also improves the
phase linearity significantly. The maximum passband ripple
and minimum stopband attenuation were improved from 1.06
dB and 36.74 dB to 0.58 dB and 38.07 dB, respectively.
The group delay Q was reduced from 2.31 to 0.77. Fig. 6
shows a 3-D scatter plot of the set of Pareto-optimal solutions
obtained. An interesting fact revealed by this plot is that
the user can choose different acceptable solutions to satisfy
different requirements.

10.05

10

9.95

9.9

9.85

9.8

9.75

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

NORMALIZED FREQUENCY

(b)
Fig. 5. (a) Amplitude response and (b) group delay of a 23-tap asymmetric
FIR filter by the WLS (dashed lines) and NSGA (solid lines) methods.

criteria and specifications can be readily incorporated. The

many advancements in the area of numerical optimization
in the past several decades in conjunction with the everincreasing power of computers have made optimization-based
IIR filter design an increasingly important field of research
[57]. It is well-known that gradient-based optimization methods such as Quasi-Newton methods can be used effectively for
the design of IIR filters [1]. Although these are in general very
fast and efficient methods, the quality of the solutions obtained
by using these methods depends heavily on the initial points
used. GAs, on the other hand, can accumulate information
about an initially unknown parameter space and use this
information to find promising regions in the parameter space.
Despite having the advantages of flexibility and robustness,
GAs performance can also be limited by its slow convergence
and lack of accuracy. However, the two classes of algorithms
can be coupled together to overcome their limitations and

Global cycle

Random Initialization
6

Crossover

GA process

GROUPDELAY Q

3
2
1

Mutation

k best-fit
solutions

Quasi-Newton
method

Fitness test
Local elite
solutions

Selection
0
0.12
0.1

0.16

0.08

ST
OP

BA

ND

0.1

ER

0.04

RO
R

Fig. 6.
NSGA.

Check termination criteria

0.14
0.12

0.06
0.08
0.06

0.02
0

0.04
0.02

SBA

PAS

RRO

ND E

Global elite
solutions

3-D scatter plot of the Pareto optimal solutions obtained by the

Check termination criteria

Optimized solution

bring together their individual advantages.

In this project, we developed a hybrid approach, the
GLSA, that incorporates two interwoven levels of optimization, namely, a GA and a QN algorithm. The GA is used
as global search tool to explore different regions in the
search space and the QN algorithm is used to exploit local
information. The GLSA starts with a randomly created initial
population of chromosomes which are taken to be strings of
the decimal-valued coefficients. The L2 -norm error criterion
given in [1] is used as an objective function for fitness
evaluation. A number of best-fit solutions are selected in each
generation to produce initial guesses for the QN algorithm
which would yield local elite solutions (LESs). The GA works
on the solutions produced by the reproduction and genetic
operations not on the LESs derived from the QN process.
The GA process is terminated after a pre-specified number of
generations or after a pre-specified number of distinct LESs
is found. In this manner, a number of GA cycles coupled
with the QN process constitute a global cycle (GC). The
GLSA restarts with a randomly created initial population to
proceed with the next GC and continues until the prescribed
amplitude specifications are satisfied. The LESs obtained from
each GC are recorded as global elite solutions to keep track
of all the local optima found though the optimization process.
Eventually, the best solution is selected as the desired solution.
Fig. 7 shows a schematic representation of the GLSA.
The GLSA was used to design a bandpass IIR filter that
would satisfy the following specifications: maximum passband
ripple and minimum stopband attenuation of 0.1 and 40 dB,
respectively, lower and upper stopband edges of 120 and 320
rad/s, respectively, lower and upper passband edges of 170
and 220 rad/s, respectively, and sampling frequency of 1000
rad/s. Crossover and mutation frequency probabilities of 0.9
and 0.05, respectively, were used and the population size was
26. The resulting amplitude response and corresponding errors
are plotted in Fig. 8(a)-(c). The proposed algorithm was run
50 times using the same specifications and it was found to
produce consistent results. The total number of local QN

Fig. 7.

Schematic representation of the GLSA.

optimizations in each run varied from 1 to 32. The QN process

plays the major role in the optimization and involves most of
the computation whereas the GA process plays a supporting
role by locating promising domains of the parameter space.
A histogram of the number of QN optimizations required in
each run of the algorithm is plotted in Fig. 9.
VII. C ONCLUSIONS
The design of digital filters and equalizers through the use
of GAs has been explored. Five different types of classical design problems have been investigated and in all five
projects improved designs have been achieved relative to
designs produced by well-known state-of-the-art techniques.
The improvements brought about in filters include reduced
passband ripple and increased stopband attenuation and in
the case of delay equalizers improved linearity in the phase
response. Evolution is a very slow process. Consequently GAs
require a large amount of computation. However, this is not a
critical demerit nowadays unless the filter design needs to be
carried out in real or quasi-real time.
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