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Filter Data

Filter Difference Equation

Filters are data processing techniques that can smooth out high-frequency fluctuations in data or remove periodic trends of a specific frequency from data. In MATLAB®, the filter function filters a vector of data x according to the following difference equation, which describes a tapped delay-line filter.

a(1)y(n)=b(1)x(n)+b(2)x(n1)++b(Nb)x(nNb+1)                 a(2)y(n1)a(Na)y(nNa+1)

In this equation, a and b are vectors of coefficients of the filter, Na is the feedback filter order, and Nb is the feedforward filter order. n is the index of the current element of x. The output y(n) is a linear combination of the current and previous elements of x and y.

The filter function uses specified coefficient vectors a and b to filter the input data x. For more information on difference equations describing filters, see [1].

Moving-Average Filter of Traffic Data

The filter function is one way to implement a moving-average filter, which is a common data smoothing technique.

The following difference equation describes a filter that averages time-dependent data with respect to the current hour and the three previous hours of data.

y(n)=14x(n)+14x(n-1)+14x(n-2)+14x(n-3)

Import data that describes traffic flow over time, and assign the first column of vehicle counts to the vector x.

load count.dat
x = count(:,1);

Create the filter coefficient vectors.

a = 1;
b = [1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4];

Compute the 4-hour moving average of the data, and plot both the original data and the filtered data.

y = filter(b,a,x);

t = 1:length(x);
plot(t,x,'--',t,y,'-')
legend('Original Data','Filtered Data')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 2 objects of type line. These objects represent Original Data, Filtered Data.

Modify Amplitude of Data

This example shows how to modify the amplitude of a vector of data by applying a transfer function.

In digital signal processing, filters are often represented by a transfer function. The Z-transform of the difference equation

a(1)y(n)=b(1)x(n)+b(2)x(n-1)+...+b(Nb)x(n-Nb+1)-a(2)y(n-1)-...-a(Na)y(n-Na+1)

is the following transfer function.

Y(z)=H(z-1)X(z)=b(1)+b(2)z-1+...+b(Nb)z-Nb+1a(1)+a(2)z-1+...+a(Na)z-Na+1X(z)

Use the transfer function

H(z-1)=b(z-1)a(z-1)=2+3z-11+0.2z-1

to modify the amplitude of the data in count.dat.

Load the data and assign the first column to the vector x.

load count.dat
x = count(:,1);

Create the filter coefficient vectors according to the transfer function H(z-1).

a = [1 0.2];
b = [2 3];

Compute the filtered data, and plot both the original data and the filtered data. This filter primarily modifies the amplitude of the original data.

y = filter(b,a,x);

t = 1:length(x);
plot(t,x,'--',t,y,'-')
legend('Original Data','Filtered Data')

Figure contains an axes object. The axes object contains 2 objects of type line. These objects represent Original Data, Filtered Data.

References

[1] Oppenheim, Alan V., Ronald W. Schafer, and John R. Buck. Discrete-Time Signal Processing. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1999.

See Also

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