A new approach for the design of digital frequency selective FIR filters using an FPA-based algorithm

Efficient digital filter design is an essential signal processing task. Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters are used in many applications due to its properties of linear phase and frequency stability. Most traditional design methods suffer from the problem of insufficient control over the frequency response of the designed filter. For this reason, the use of a recently developed optimisation technique called flowers pollination algorithm (FPA), -based on the natural process of pollination of flowers- along with a novel multiple fitness function, is proposed in order to obtain optimised filter coefficients that best approximate ideal specifications. Results have been compared to both traditional methods (mainly windowing and the Parks-McClellan algorithm) as well as to several nature-inspired schemes. Finally, processing of a real EEG signal is used to quantitatively evaluate performance of designed filters. Numerical results show that our method achieves better fit to desired filter specifications, a 5−10 times larger attenuation in the stop band and a narrower transition band, at the expense of slightly increasing the pass-band ripple (5−15%) in 3 out of 4 of the cases.