Multistage Design Of Decimators/Interpolators

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This example shows how to design multistage decimators and interpolators. The example Efficient Narrow Transition-Band FIR Filter Design shows how to apply the IFIR and the MULTISTAGE approaches to single-rate designs of lowpass filters. The techniques can be extended to the design of multistage decimators and/or interpolators. The IFIR approach results in a 2-stage decimator/interpolator. For the MULTISTAGE approach, the number of stages can be either automatically optimized or manually controlled.

Reducing the Sampling-Rate of a Signal

Decimators are used to reduce the sampling-rate of a signal while simultaneously reducing the bandwidth proportionally. For example, to reduce the rate from 48 MHz to 1 MHz, a factor of 48, the following are typical specifications for a lowpass filter that will reduce the bandwidth accordingly.

Fs    = 48e6;
TW    = 100e3;
Astop = 80;     % Minimum stopband attenuation
M     = 48;     % Decimation factor

A simple multistage design given these specs is

multidecim = designMultistageDecimator(M,Fs,TW,Astop);

Analyzing the Multistage Filter

To analyze the resulting design, several functions are available

info(multidecim)   % Provide some information on the multistage filter
cost(multidecim)   % Determine the implementation cost
fvtool(multidecim) % Visualize overall magnitude response, group delay, etc

ans =

    'Discrete-Time Filter Cascade
     ----------------------------
     Number of stages: 5
     
     Stage1: dsp.FIRDecimator
     -------
     Discrete-Time FIR Multirate Filter (real)               
     -----------------------------------------               
     Filter Structure   : Direct-Form FIR Polyphase Decimator
     Decimation Factor  : 2                                  
     Polyphase Length   : 4                                  
     Filter Length      : 7                                  
     Stable             : Yes                                
     Linear Phase       : Yes (Type 1)                       
                                                             
     Arithmetic         : double                             
     
     
     Stage2: dsp.FIRDecimator
     -------
     Discrete-Time FIR Multirate Filter (real)               
     -----------------------------------------               
     Filter Structure   : Direct-Form FIR Polyphase Decimator
     Decimation Factor  : 2                                  
     Polyphase Length   : 4                                  
     Filter Length      : 7                                  
     Stable             : Yes                                
     Linear Phase       : Yes (Type 1)                       
                                                             
     Arithmetic         : double                             
     
     
     Stage3: dsp.FIRDecimator
     -------
     Discrete-Time FIR Multirate Filter (real)               
     -----------------------------------------               
     Filter Structure   : Direct-Form FIR Polyphase Decimator
     Decimation Factor  : 2                                  
     Polyphase Length   : 6                                  
     Filter Length      : 11                                 
     Stable             : Yes                                
     Linear Phase       : Yes (Type 1)                       
                                                             
     Arithmetic         : double                             
     
     
     Stage4: dsp.FIRDecimator
     -------
     Discrete-Time FIR Multirate Filter (real)               
     -----------------------------------------               
     Filter Structure   : Direct-Form FIR Polyphase Decimator
     Decimation Factor  : 3                                  
     Polyphase Length   : 11                                 
     Filter Length      : 33                                 
     Stable             : Yes                                
     Linear Phase       : Yes (Type 1)                       
                                                             
     Arithmetic         : double                             
     
     
     Stage5: dsp.FIRDecimator
     -------
     Discrete-Time FIR Multirate Filter (real)               
     -----------------------------------------               
     Filter Structure   : Direct-Form FIR Polyphase Decimator
     Decimation Factor  : 2                                  
     Polyphase Length   : 48                                 
     Filter Length      : 95                                 
     Stable             : Yes                                
     Linear Phase       : Yes (Type 1)                       
                                                             
     Arithmetic         : double                             
     
     '


ans = 

  struct with fields:

                  NumCoefficients: 89
                        NumStates: 146
    MultiplicationsPerInputSample: 6.6042
          AdditionsPerInputSample: 5.6667

Compare to Single-Stage Decimator

Multistage designs are efficient in terms of multiplications per input sample and overall number of filter coefficients. Compare with a single stage design.

singledecim = designMultistageDecimator(M,Fs,TW,Astop,'NumStages',1);
cost(singledecim)   % Determine the implementation cost
fvtool(multidecim,singledecim)
legend('Multistage','Singlestage')

ans = 

  struct with fields:

                  NumCoefficients: 2361
                        NumStates: 2400
    MultiplicationsPerInputSample: 49.1875
          AdditionsPerInputSample: 49.1667

Controlling the Number of Stages

By default, the number of stages is automatically determined to minimize the implementation cost. The number of stages can be set manually to any number between 1 and the number of prime factors in the decimation factor. Just increasing to two stages makes a significant difference.

twostagedecim = designMultistageDecimator(M,Fs,TW,Astop,'NumStages',2);
cost(twostagedecim)

ans = 

  struct with fields:

                  NumCoefficients: 218
                        NumStates: 265
    MultiplicationsPerInputSample: 9.2500
          AdditionsPerInputSample: 9.1667

Minimizing the Number of Coefficients

By default, the design minimizes multiplications per input sample. It is also possible to minimize the number of coefficients.

mincoeffdecim = designMultistageDecimator(M,Fs,TW,Astop,...
    'MinTotalCoeffs',true);
cost(mincoeffdecim)

ans = 

  struct with fields:

                  NumCoefficients: 87
                        NumStates: 147
    MultiplicationsPerInputSample: 6.8125
          AdditionsPerInputSample: 6

Compared to multidecim, the number of coefficients is lower, but the number of multiplications per input sample is higher.

Estimate vs. Design for Determining Cost

By default, the best multistage configuration is determined using estimates of the number of coefficients required for each stage. A slower, but more precise method, designs all filter candidates and determines the actual number of coefficients in order to find the optimal solution.

optimaldecim = designMultistageDecimator(M,Fs,TW,Astop,...
    'CostMethod','design');
cost(optimaldecim)
fvtool(multidecim,optimaldecim)

ans = 

  struct with fields:

                  NumCoefficients: 87
                        NumStates: 146
    MultiplicationsPerInputSample: 6.5625
          AdditionsPerInputSample: 5.6667

Design of Multistage Interpolators

Similar savings are possible when designing multistage interpolators. As with all interpolators, the overall design has a gain equal to the interpolation factor.

multiinterp = designMultistageInterpolator(8);
fvtool(multiinterp)

Summary

The use of multistage techniques can provide significant computational savings when implementing decimators/interpolators.