Minimax optimization

We use the Optimization Toolbox to solve a nonlinear filter design problem. Note that to run this demo you must have the Signal Processing Toolbox installed.

Contents

Set finite precision parameters

Consider an example for the design of finite precision filters. For this, you need to specify not only the filter design parameters such as the cut-off frequency and number of coefficients, but also how many bits are available since the design is in finite precision.

nbits  = 8;         % How many bits have we to realize filter
maxbin = 2^nbits-1; % Maximum number expressable in nbits bits
n      = 4;         % Number of coefficients (order of filter plus 1)
Wn     = 0.2;       % Cutoff frequency for filter
Rp     = 1.5;       % Decibels of ripple in the passband
w      = 128;       % Number of frequency points to take

Continuous design first

This is a continuous filter design; we use cheby1, but we could also use ellip, yulewalk or remez here:

[b1,a1]=cheby1(n-1,Rp,Wn);

[h,w]=freqz(b1,a1,w);   % Frequency response
h = abs(h);             % Magnitude response
plot(w, h)
title('Frequency response using non-integer variables')
x = [b1,a1];            % The design variables

Set bounds for filter coefficients

We now set bounds on the maximum and minimum values:

if (any(x < 0))
%   If there are negative coefficients - must save room to use a sign bit
%   and therefore reduce maxbin
    maxbin = floor(maxbin/2);
    vlb = -maxbin * ones(1, 2*n)-1;
    vub = maxbin * ones(1, 2*n);
else
%   otherwise, all positive
    vlb = zeros(1,2*n);
    vub = maxbin * ones(1, 2*n);
end

Scale coefficients

Set the biggest value equal to maxbin and scale other filter coefficients appropriately.

[m, mix] = max(abs(x));
factor =  maxbin/m;
x =  factor * x;    % Rescale other filter coefficients
xorig = x;

xmask = 1:2*n;
% Remove the biggest value and the element that controls D.C. Gain
% from the list of values that can be changed.
xmask(mix) = [];
nx = 2*n;

Set optimization criteria

Using OPTIMSET, adjust the termination criteria to reasonably high values to promote short running times. Also turn on the display of results at each iteration:

options = optimset('TolX',0.1,'TolFun',1e-4,'TolCon',1e-6,'Display','iter');

Minimize the absolute maximum values

We need to minimize absolute maximum values, so we set options.MinAbsMax to the number of frequency points:

if length(w) == 1
   options = optimset(options,'MinAbsMax',w);
else
   options = optimset(options,'MinAbsMax',length(w));
end

Eliminate first value for optimization.

Discretize and eliminate first value and perform optimization by calling FMINIMAX:

[x, xmask] = elimone(x, xmask, h, w, n, maxbin)

niters = length(xmask);
disp(sprintf('Performing %g stages of optimization.\n\n', niters));

for m = 1:niters
    disp(sprintf('Stage: %g \n', m));
    x(xmask) = fminimax(@filtobj,x(xmask),[],[],[],[],vlb(xmask),vub(xmask), ...
                        @filtcon,options,x,xmask,n,h,maxbin);
    [x, xmask] = elimone(x, xmask, h, w, n, maxbin);
end
x =

    0.5441    1.6323    1.6323    0.5441   57.1653 -127.0000  108.0000  -33.8267


xmask =

     1     2     3     4     5     8

Performing 6 stages of optimization.


Stage: 1 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      8     0.00329174                                            
    1     17      0.0001848            1        0.000184     
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                    34
                                    35
Stage: 2 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      7      0.0414182                                            
    1     15        0.01675            1          0.0165     
    2     23        0.01544            1        -0.00105    Hessian modified  
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                    23
                                   159
Stage: 3 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      6      0.0716961                                            
    1     13        0.05943            1          0.0594     
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                     4
                                   156
Stage: 4 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      5       0.129938                                            
    1     11        0.04278            1          0.0428     
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                     4
Stage: 5 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      4      0.0901749                                            
    1      9        0.03867            1          0.0387     
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                     4
Stage: 6 


                       Max                     Directional 
 Iter   F-count  {F,constraints}  Step-size     derivative    Procedure 
    0      3        0.11283                                            
    1      7        0.05033            1          0.0503     
    2     11        0.02881            1         -0.0215    Hessian modified twice  
Optimization terminated: Search direction less than 2*options.TolX
 and maximum constraint violation is less than options.TolCon.
Active inequalities (to within options.TolCon = 1e-006):
  lower      upper     ineqlin   ineqnonlin
                                     4

Check nearest integer values

See if nearby values produce a for better filter.

xold = x;
xmask = 1:2*n;
xmask([n+1, mix]) = [];
x = x + 0.5;
for i = xmask
    [x, xmask] = elimone(x, xmask, h, w, n, maxbin);
end
xmask = 1:2*n;
xmask([n+1, mix]) = [];
x= x - 0.5;
for i = xmask
    [x, xmask] = elimone(x, xmask, h, w, n, maxbin);
end
if any(abs(x) > maxbin)
  x = xold;
end

Frequency response comparisons

We first plot the frequency response of the filter and we compare it to a filter where the coefficients are just rounded up or down:

subplot(211)
bo = x(1:n);
ao = x(n+1:2*n);
h2 = abs(freqz(bo,ao,128));
plot(w,h,w,h2,'o')
title('Optimized filter versus original')

xround = round(xorig)
b = xround(1:n);
a = xround(n+1:2*n);
h3 = abs(freqz(b,a,128));
subplot(212)
plot(w,h,w,h3,'+')
title('Rounded filter versus original')
set(gcf,'NextPlot','replace')
xround =

     1     2     2     1    57  -127   108   -34