DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING

Infinite Impulse
CHAPTER 10
Response (IIR)

Objectives
After completing this chapter, you will be able to:
▪ Determine how IIR works
▪ Differentiate Infinite Impulse to Finite Impulse
Response
▪ Determine the advantages and disadvantages of
Infinite Impulse Response

DEFINITION

Infinite impulse response (IIR) is a property applying to many linear time-invariant

systems that are distinguished by having an impulse response h(t) which does not
become exactly zero past a certain point, but continues indefinitely. This is in contrast to
a finite impulse response (FIR) system in which the impulse response does become
exactly zero at times t > T for some finite T, thus being of finite duration. Common
examples of linear time-invariant systems are most electronic and digital filters. Systems
with this property are known as IIR systems or IIR filters.

In practice, the impulse response, even of IIR systems, usually approaches zero
and can be neglected past a certain point. However, the physical systems which give rise
to IIR or FIR responses are dissimilar, and therein lies the importance of the distinction.
For instance, analog electronic filters composed of resistors, capacitors, and/or inductors
(and perhaps linear amplifiers) are generally IIR filters. On the other hand, discrete-time
filters (usually digital filters) based on a tapped delay line employing no feedback are
necessarily FIR filters. The capacitors (or inductors) in the analog filter have a "memory"
and their internal state never completely relaxes following an impulse (assuming the
classical model of capacitors and inductors where quantum effects are ignored). But in
the latter case, after an impulse has reached the end of the tapped delay line, the system
has no further memory of that impulse and has returned to its initial state; its impulse
response beyond that point is exactly zero.

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IMPLEMENTATION AND DESIGN

Although almost all analog electronic filters are IIR, digital filters may be either IIR
or FIR. The presence of feedback in the topology of a discrete-time filter (such as the
block diagram shown below) generally creates an IIR response. The z domain transfer
function of an IIR filter contains a non-trivial denominator, describing those feedback
terms. The transfer function of a FIR filter, on the other hand, has only a numerator as
expressed in the general form derived below. All of the 𝑎𝑖 coefficients with i > 0 (feedback
terms) are zero and the filter has no finite poles.

The transfer functions pertaining to IIR analog electronic filters have been
extensively studied and optimized for their amplitude and phase characteristics. These
continuous-time filter functions are described in the Laplace domain. Desired solutions
can be transferred to the case of discrete-time filters whose transfer functions are
expressed in the z domain, through the use of certain mathematical techniques such as
the bilinear transform, impulse invariance, or pole–zero matching method. Thus, digital
IIR filters can be based on well-known solutions for analog filters such as the Chebyshev
filter, Butterworth filter, and elliptic filter, inheriting the characteristics of those solutions.

The output values of IIR filters are calculated by adding the weighted sum of
previous and current input values to the weighted sum of previous output values. If the
input values are xi and the output values yi, the difference equation defines the IIR filter:

The number of forward coefficients Nx and the number of reverse coefficients Ny is

usually equal and is the filter order. The higher the filter order, the more the filter
resembles an ideal filter. This is illustrated in the following figure of a frequency response
of lowpass Butterworth filters with different orders. The steeper the filter gain falls, the
higher the filter order is.

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Butterworth Filters

The frequency response of the Butterworth filter has no ripples in the passband
and the stopband. Therefore, it is called a maximally flat filter. The advantage of
Butterworth filters is the smooth, monotonically decreasing frequency response in the
transition region.

Chebyshev Filters

If the filter is the same, the frequency response of the Chebyshev filter has a
narrower transition range than the frequency response of the Butterworth filter which
results in a passband with more ripples. The frequency response characteristics of
Chebyshev filters have an equiripple magnitude response in the passband, monotonically
decreasing magnitude response in the stopband, and a sharper roll off in the transition
region as compared to Butterworth filters of the same order.

Bessel Filters

The frequency response of Bessel filters is similar to the Butterworth filter smooth
in the passband and in the stopband. If the filter order is the same, the stopband
attenuation of the Bessel filter is much lower than that of the Butterworth filter. Of all filter
types the Bessel filter has the widest transition range if the filter order is fixed.

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TRANSFER FUNCTION DERIVATION

Digital filters are often described and implemented in terms of the difference equation that
defines how the output signal is related to the input signal:

where:

P is the feedforward filter order

𝑏𝑖 are the feedforward filter coefficients
Q is the feedback filter order
𝑎𝑖 are the feedback filter coefficients
x [n] is the input signal
y [n] is the output signal.

A more condensed form of the difference equation is:

which, when rearranged, becomes:

To find the transfer function of the filter, we first take the Z-transform of each side of the
above equation, where we use the time-shift property to obtain:

We define the transfer function to be:

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Considering that in most IIR filter designs coefficient 𝑎0 is 1, the IIR filter transfer function
takes the more traditional form:

STABILITY

The transfer function allows one to judge whether or not a system is bounded-
input, bounded-output (BIBO) stable. To be specific, the BIBO stability criterion requires
that the ROC of the system includes the unit circle. For example, for a causal system, all
poles of the transfer function have to have an absolute value smaller than one. In other
words, all poles must be located within a unit circle in the z-plane.

The poles are defined as the values of z which make the denominator of H (z) equal to 0:

Clearly, if 𝑎𝑗 ≠ 0 then the poles are not located at the origin of the z-plane. This
is in contrast to the FIR filter where all poles are located at the origin, and is therefore
always stable.

IIR filters are sometimes preferred over FIR filters because an IIR filter can achieve a
much sharper transition region roll-off than a FIR filter of the same order.

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An example of a block diagram of an IIR filter. The 𝑧 −1 block is a unit delay.

Example

Let the transfer function H(z) of a discrete-time filter be given by:

governed by the parameter a, a real number with 0 < |a| < 1 H(z). is stable and causal
with a pole at a. The time-domain impulse response can be shown to be given by:

where u(n) is the unit step function. It can be seen that h(n) is non-zero for all n ≥ 0, thus
an impulse response which continues infinitely.

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IIR filter example

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

The main advantage digital IIR filters have over FIR filters is their efficiency in
implementation, in order to meet a specification in terms of passband, stopband, ripple,
and/or roll-off. Such a set of specifications can be accomplished with a lower order (Q in
the above formulae) IIR filter than would be required for a FIR filter meeting the same
requirements. If implemented in a signal processor, this implies a correspondingly fewer
number of calculations per time step; the computational savings is often of a rather large
factor.

On the other hand, FIR filters can be easier to design, for instance, to match a
particular frequency response requirement. This is particularly true when the requirement
is not one of the usual cases (high-pass, low-pass, notch, etc.) which have been studied
and optimized for analog filters. Also, FIR filters can be easily made to be linear phase
(constant group delay vs frequency)—a property that is not easily met using IIR filters and
then only as an approximation (for instance with the Bessel filter). Another issue regarding
digital IIR filters is the potential for limit cycle behavior when idle, due to the feedback
system in conjunction with quantization.

The advantage of IIR filters over FIR filters is that IIR filters usually require fewer
coefficients to execute similar filtering operations, that IIR filters work faster, and require
less memory space.

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The disadvantage of IIR filters is the nonlinear phase response. IIR filters are well
suited for applications that require no phase information, for example, for monitoring the
signal amplitudes. FIR filters are better suited for applications that require a linear phase
response.

Reference:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_impulse_response#Example
• http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370858P-
01/genmaths/genmaths/calc_filterfir_iir/#:~:text=The%20advantage%20of
%20IIR%20filters,is%20the%20nonlinear%20phase%20response.
Video Tutorial Link:
Overview of FIR and IIR Filters

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yNQBWKRSs4
Finite Impulse Response (FIR) and Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) Filters

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfYlFbMBjco

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