HILLARY A.

BSEcE -

2.16. An ideal low-pass filterMATLAB

The impulse response of an ideal low-pass filter is

or a sinc signal.
(a) Given that the impulse response is the response of the system to an input x(t) = (t) with
zero initial conditions, can an ideal low-pass filter be used for real-time processing? Explain.
(b) Is the ideal low-pass filtering bounded-input bounded-output stable? Use MATLAB to
check if the impulse response satisfies the condition for BIBO stability.

Answers:
(a)
Consider a network whose input is , and its output is the impulse response . We can represent the
input-output relationship as the block diagram shown below.

Note: The impulse response is the output of a LTI system due to an impulse input applied at t 0 or n = 0.
The filters impulse response is a sinc function in the time domain where in it is expressed as,

sinc (t)

In signal processing, the normalized sinc function is commonly defined by for t 0 by

sinc (t) For,

When t = 0 the numerator and denominator of the sinc becomes zero, thus as t approaches to zero is found
using LHospitals rule

In either case, the value at x = 0 is to be defined by limiting value sinc (0) = 1.

Therefore we cannot implement the ideal low pass-filter in real time processing because its impulse response is
infinitely long on time. Since the output does not depends on past values of the input, the ideal low-pass filter
is non-causal. It cannot be shifted to make it causal because the impulse response extends all the way to time -
as shown in the graph below the sinc filter has infinite impulse response in both positive and negative time
directions as shown in the succeeding graph, it must be approximated for real-world (non-abstract) applications.
(b) Matlab codes for the impulse response of an Ideal Low-Pass Filter

The x-axis denoted as t or time is exclusively set from -20 to 20 with a sampling time of 0.0001. In the y-axis
also is the normalized sinc function or the impulse response. From the given sinc function it is labelled as the
Amplitude. The normalization of the sinc signal function causes the definite integral of the function over the
real numbers to equal 1. It has been proved by the LHospitals rule in the preceding discussion or as the t
approaches to zero it is equal to 1. So the third line declared that it initializes to the value of 1 when y variable is
equal to zero. To plot the output, plot(x,y) is being used.

The figure above shows the graph of the ideal low-pass filter having the impulse response of a sinc function.
 To determine if the system is BIBO stable we consider a bounded input signal
x (t), and a bounded output signal also for every input to the system that is
bounded.
Suppose h(t) is bounded by a finite value M, or x(t) < M < , for all times,
which means

that the value of x(t) cannot exceed an envelope [M, M], at all times.

Where M is the bound for oe equivalently the impulse response is absolutely

integrable .
The LTI system is not BIBO stable because the impulse response h(t) is absolutely integrable.