A Windowing Approach for Designing Critically Sampled Nearly PerfectReconstruction Cosine-Modulated Transmultiplexers and Filter Banks

Pilar Martin , Fernando Cruz-Roldn and Tapio Saramki

1
Departamento Teora de la Seal y Comunicaciones, Universidad de Alcal,
Alcal de Henares, Madrid, Spain, e-mail: p.martin@uah.es and fernando.cruz@uah.es
2
Institute of Signal Processing, Tampere University of Technology, P. O. Box 553,
FIN-33101 Tampere, Finland, e-mail: saram@vip.fi or ts@cs.tut.fi

Abstract
A very fast technique for designing nearly perfectreconstruction (NPR) critically sampled cosine-modulated
M-channel transmultiplexer (TMUX) and filter bank (FB)
systems is proposed. This technique is based on using the
windowing technique for designing the prototype filter so
that its 3-dB cutoff frequency is located at = / (2M). The
motivation for this is the observation that if the prototype filter cascaded with itself is a 2Mth filter, then the resulting
TMUX (in the case of an ideal channel being a pure delay)
or FB system has approximately a perfect-reconstruction
(PR) property. This implies that for this cascade the 6-dB
cutoff point should be approximately located at = / (2M),
and, correspondingly, the 3-dB cutoff frequency of the prototype filter is located at this angular frequency.
The main advantage of the proposed design scheme is
that it significantly lowers the computational complexity
when compared with other existing techniques proposed for
designing critically sampled cosine-modulated TMUX or FB
systems. The PR property is not achieved, but for the resulting TMUX (FB) systems, the intersymbol interference and
crosstalk errors (the amplitude and alias errors) are small.
Both of these errors are small enough in practical systems.
Several examples are included illustrating these desired
properties.

1. Introduction
Critically sampled uniform M-channel transmultiplexer
(TMUX) systems, as depicted in Fig 1, have been widely
studied in the literature [1][4] due to their numerous communications applications [5][7]. As shown in this figure,
the role of the synthesis bank is to combine M sub-signals to
be transferred through the channel with the transfer function
C(z). The role of the analysis filter banks is to separate the
output signals of the transmission channel so that the xl [n]s
for l = 0, 1, , M1 are approximately delayed versions of
the original x l [n]s.
Traditionally, the design of critically sampled (TMUX)
systems is based on the design of critically uniform filter
bank (FB) systems as shown in Fig.2. This is due to the fact
that in the cases of the ideal channel for a TMUX system and
when ignoring the effect of the processing unit for a FB system, similar properties are achieved for both systems [8].

The most efficient way for designing and implementing

these systems is to first start with a linear-phase finite impulse response (FIR) prototype transfer function given by

Figure 1. M-channel critically sampled transmultiplexer.

Figure 2. M-channel critically sampled filter bank.

P( z ) =

p[n] z n , p[N n] = p[n] for n = 0, 1, L, N

n =0

(1)

and then to apply a proper cosine modulation scheme. One

alternative is to generate the synthesis and analysis transfer
functions, respectively, as follows:

Fr ( z ) =

n=0

n=0

f r [n] z n and H r (z ) = hr [n] z n

(2a)

for 0 r M 1 , where

N
r
f r [n] = 2 Mp[n] cos (2r + 1)
n ( 1) (2b)
2M
2
4

and

N
r
hr [n] = 2 p[n] cos (2r + 1)
n + ( 1)
. (2c)
M
2
2
4

The main difference of the above equation compare to

that given in [1] is that an additional constant M is included
in Eq. (2b). This is due to the fact when interpolating by a
factor of M the transfer function has to be multiplied by the
same factor. This has two benefits. First, it the maximum
amplitude value of the prototype filter is approximately equal
to unity, then the same is true for those of the analysis and

synthesis filters. Second, the constant of the value 1/M appearing in the input-output transfer functions of the systems
of Figs. 1 and 2 can be omitted, as will be done throughout
this paper.
For the TMUX system of Fig. 1, the z-transform of the
lth-output signal is expressible on terms of the z-transforms
of the input signals, denoted by Xk(z) for the kth input signal,
as
M 1

X l ( z ) = Tlk ( z ) X k ( z ),

(3a)

k =0

where
M 1

)(

) (

Tlk ( z ) = H l z1 M W m C z1 M W m Fk z1 M W m
m =0

(3b)

for k = 0, 1, , M1. Here, Tlk(z) is the transfer function between the lth output and the kth input in Fig. 1.
When designing the prototype filter transfer function P(z),
it usually assumed that the channel filter is ideal, that is,
C(z) 1. In this case, Eq. (3b) deduces to

M 1

) (

Tlk ( z ) = H l z1 M W m Fk z1 M W m .
m =0

(4)

The perfect reconstruction (PR) property implies that the

output and input sequences are related through [2]

x l [n] = x l [n K ] for l = 0, 1, , M1,

(5a)

K=N M .

(5b)

where
This property is achieved by designing the prototype filter so
that the following two conditions are met:
1) Tll ( z ) z K for l = 0, 1, , M1.
2) Tkl ( z ) 0
for k l, k = 0, 1, , M1, and l = 0, 1,
, M1.
For the FB system of Fig. 2, in turn, the relation between
the output signal x [n] and the input signal x [n] is expressible in the z domain as

Y ( z ) = T0 ( z ) X ( z ) +

Tl ( z ) X (ze j 2 l M ) ,

M 1

(6a)

l =1

where
M 1

T0 ( z ) = Fk ( z ) H k ( z )

(6b)

k =0

is called the distortion transfer function and determines the

distortion caused by the overall system for the unaliased
component X(z) of the input signal and
M 1

Tl ( z ) = Fk ( z ) H k ze
k =0

j 2 l M

(6c)

for l = 1, 2, , M1 are called the alias transfer functions and

determine how well the aliased components X(zej2 l / M) of
the input signal are attenuated.
In this case, the PR property implies that in the system of
Fig. 1, when omitting the processing unit, the output and input signals are related through [1], [2], [4], [9]

x[n] = x[n N ] .

(7)

This property is achieved by designing the prototype filter so

that the following two conditions are met:
1) T0 ( z ) z N .
2) Tl ( z ) 0 for l = 1, 2, , M1.
For PR systems, the criteria for the prototype filter are
very strict. Fortunately, in many practical applications, the
PR property can be slightly relaxed, resulting in nearly perfect reconstruction (NPR) systems. In these systems, the
above-mentioned PR conditions should be met only approximately. When practically constructing the overall systems of Figs. 1 and 2, the main goal is that they are generated
such that errors caused by the NPR property are hardly noticeable by a human being. In the case of audio or speech
signals (images), our ears (eyes) serve as the final referees.
During the last two decades, numerous methods for designing the prototype filter for both PR and NPR systems
have been introduced. Also, many structures have been proposed. See, e.g., [1][17] as well as the references in [1], [2],
[4], and [9].
The main purpose of this paper is to further study the
properties of NPR systems resulting when using the very fast
technique originally proposed in [12] for designing prototype
filters for TMUX systems. This technique is based on applying the windowing technique for generating the prototype filter such that its 3-dB cutoff frequency is located at
= (2 M ) . First, the applicability of this technique for
generating FB systems is also considered. Second, the properties of the resulting systems are studied more carefully by
means of several comparisons, examples, and quantities
measuring the differences between the resulting systems and
the PR systems.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 proposes
the basic approach, based on using windowing technique, for
designing the prototype filter for both cosine-modulated
TMUX and FB systems. In Section 3, several quantities are
considered for measuring various errors cased by the NPR
property. In Section 4, these quantities are used for evaluating the performances of the systems resulting when applying
the proposed design scheme. In addition, an example is included illustrating the performance of a resulting TMUX system in a practical application. Finally, concluding remarks
are drawn in Section 5.

2. Proposed Design Scheme for the Prototype

Filter
This section reviews the efficient synthesis method proposed
in [12] for designing prototype filters for NPR TMUX and
FB systems.

2.1 Start-Up Idea for the Proposed Design Scheme

The key idea behind this technique is based on the following two observations made in [10]. First, if the prototype
transfer function is designed to have a narrow transition
bandwidth and high stopband attenuation, then the resulting
TMUX and FB systems have good NPR properties. Second,
most importantly, the prototype filter generating a PR
TMUX or FB system is characterized by the property that if
it is cascaded with itself, then the resulting filter is 2Mth
band linear-phase FIR filter. According to the discussion in
[18], this fact implies first that the passband and stopband
edges of amplitude response of this cascade as given by [cf.
Eq. (1) ]

( )

P e j

= p[n] e jn

3.1 Quality Measures for FB Systems

(8)

n =0

are approximately related through

p = (1 ) (2 M )

(9a)

and
s = (1 + )

(2M ) ,

k =1

P e j ((k 1)

M + 0 )

+ P e j (k
k =1

( )

1 + 1 T0 e j 1 2 .

(9b)

where is a positive number. The second implication is that

for any value = 0, the following condition is valid:

For the FB system of Fig. 2, there exist two main distortions.

The first one is the amplitude distortion between the output
and input signals. This distortion can be conveniently measured by determining the maximum and minimum values the
amplitude response corresponding to T0(z), as given by
Eq. (6b), as follows:

M + 0 )

= 1. (10)

As the actual distortion measure the following quantity:

Eamp = 1 + 2 .
(14)
is used later. As a measure of the total alias distortion, the
following quantity is used:

When selecting = 0 = /(2M) this implies that

P e j (2 M ) =

1
P e j (2 k +1) (2 M )
2 k =1

( ) },

Ealias = max Talias e j

[0, ]

(11)

Hence, if the following properties are satisfied:

1) The frequency points = (2k+1)/(2M) for k = 1, 2, , M in
the stopband region of the prototype filter, that is, in the
region [s, ] with s given by Eq. (9c). This implies
that 2.
2) The amplitude response of the prototype filter cascaded
with itself, as given by Eq. (8), provides enough attenuation at these points.
then the amplitude value of the prototype filter is very close
to the value of 1

(13)

2 at = /(2M).

(15a)

where

( )

Talias e j =

Tk (e j )

M 1

(15b)

k =1

is the total aliasing distortion and the amplitude responses in

the summation of the above equation correspond to the transfer functions given by Eq. (6c).
For many techniques proposed for optimizing the prototype filter, its stopband edge s is pre-specified according to
Eq. (9b). For the proposed design scheme this is not true.
Therefore, s for the resulting prototype filter is measured
and the roll-off factor , determined according to Eq. (9b), is
used as the third quality measure.

2.2 Proposed Design Scheme

3.2 Quality Measures for TMUX Systems

Based on this fact, given N, the order of the prototype filter

and M, the number of channels, the proposed design scheme
based on windowing can be carried out as follows:
Step 1: Select a proper window function w[n] being nonzero
for 0 n N and satisfying w[Nn] = w[n].
Step 2: Generate the impulse-response of the prototype
transfer function P(z), as given by Eq. (1), as

For the PR TMUX system of Fig. 1 with the ideal channel,

the lth output sequence is a delayed version of the the lth input sequence according to Eqs. (5a) and (5b). For the NPR
system, there exist the following main errors. First, the kth
input signals for k l has effects on the lth output. This is
called inter-channel interference (ICI) and can be measured
in the frequency domain by the quantity

p[n] = p id [n] w[n] for n = 0, 1, L , N ,

where

p id [n] = sin[(n N 2 ) c ]

[(n N 2) ]

Eici = max max

0 l M 1 [0, ]

(12a)
(12b)

are the impulse-response values of the ideal filter

with cutoff frequency c.
Step 3: Determine c so that the amplitude response of the
prototype achieves the value of 1 2 at = /(2M).
The value of c can be found by using any line search algorithm, thereby making the overall synthesis extremely fast.

k =0, k l

(16)

Second, the delay for data samples passing through the single
channel is not exactly K, as given by Eq. (5b), resulting in
the fact that the transmitted sample does not occur at the output at the right time instant. In addition, also the other transmitted samples have an effect on the output sample at this
time instant. This error is called intersymbol interference
(ISI) and can be measured conveniently in the time domain
by the following error quantity:

Eisi = max ( t ll [n] [n K ] )2

0 l M 1 n

3. Performance Measures
The NPR TMUX and FB systems of Figs. 1 and 2 resulting
when using prototype filters designing the simple technique
of the previous section do not suffer from any phase distortion. This is valid when it is assumed that the channel is ideal
in Fig. 1 and the effects of the processing unit are ignored in
Fig. 2. However, there exit various distortions between the
input(s) and output(s) due to the NPR property. This section
considers proper quantities for measuring these distortions.

Tlk (e j ) .

M 1

(17)

Here, tll[n] is the impulse response between the lth output and
input sequences and [n] is the unit sample.
Also the following error quantities are used:

Maxerror = max 20 log10 max x l [n] xl [n]

0l M 1
n

and

(18)

SNR = max 10 log10 ( xl [n] )2 ( xl [n] xl [n] )2 . (19)

0 l M 1
n
n

4. Simulation Results
This section studies the effects of N, the order of the prototype filter, M, the number of channels, and the selection of
the window on the resulting NPR systems. It is also shown,
by means of an example, that the proposed technique results
in slightly better TMUX and FB systems than those achievable using a similar technique introduced in [16].
Various prototype filters have been designed for several
values of N and L using three windows, namely, the Blackman, Kaiser, and Saramki windows [19]. It has been experimentally observed that NPR TMUX and FB systems with
very good properties are achieved by selecting the adjustable
parameter of the Kaiser and Saramki windows such that the
minimum stopband attenuation of the resulting prototype filter is approximately 100 dB. Various quality measures, as introduced in Section 3, are given in Tables I, II, and III for
various 4-channel, 8-channel, and 16-channel FB and TMUX
systems, respectively.
A very similar technique for designing prototype filters
has been proposed by Lin and Vaidyanathan in [16]. In order
to compare the proposed synthesis scheme with this technique, consider the example included in [16]. In this exam-

ple, M = 32 channels are used, the order of the prototype filter is N = 466, the adjustable parameter of the Kaiser window
is selected to give approximately a 100-dB attenuation for
the prototype filter. Figures 3 and 4 compare the performances the TMUX and FB systems resulting when using the
proposed technique and the Lin-Vaidyathan technique. It can
be seen from Fig. 3 that the resulting TMUX systems are
practically the same. However, as seen from Fig. 4, the proposed technique slightly reduces the maximum amplitude
deviation from unity for the unaliased component (0.0018
compared to 0.0020) in the resulting FB systems.
In order to compare the efficiency of these two TMUX
systems in a practical application, an electrocardiogram signal has been used as the input for the first channel, whereas
there are no input signals to the remaining channels. It has
been assumed that the power (energy per sample) of this signal is equal to 15.8721 dB, the transmission channel has an
AWGN impairment with noise power equal to 19.9933 dB,
no channel equalization has been performed. These conditions are similar to those used in VDSL environments. The
solid and dashed lines in Figs. 5 show the first input and output sequences, respectively, for the proposed and LinVaidyanathan techniques. More detailed quality measures for
these two TMUX systems are given in Table IV, showing
that the proposed technique gives slightly better results.

Table I. 4-channel transmultiplexers and filter banks designed by the proposed method

N
64
64
64
96
96
96
128
128
128

K=N/2M
8
8
8
12
12
12
16
16
16

Window
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki

0.8356
0.9549
0.9522
0.5545
0.6334
0,6319
0.4150
0.4739
0.4727

Eamp
0.0016
0.0037
0.0036
0.0019
0.0033
0.0035
0.0019
0.0036
0.0035

Ealias (dB)
97.0281
106.0701
102.4349
103.8314
104.3283
102.6998
109.1875
106.8078
105.8325

EICI (dB)
97.0499
108.1598
102.4349
110.0339
104.3283
102.6998
119.1823
106.8078
105.8325

EISI (dB)
66.7800
56.0070
56.3366
67.2522
59.4184
60.1737
68.4681
61.7293
60.1783

Table II. 8-channel transmultiplexers and filter banks designed by the proposed method

N
64
64
64
96
96
96
128
128
128

K=N/2M
4
4
4
6
6
6
8
8
8

Window
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki

1.6692
1.9033
1.8982
1.1090
1.2667
1.2634
0.8300
0.9476
0.9452

Eamp
0.0054
0.0118
0.0112
0.0017
0.0035
0.0037
0.0015
0.0033
0.0038

Ealias (dB)
48.5692
41.6208
42.0985
88.5438
87.7372
87.8525
96.9505
100.3057
98.6888

EICI (dB)
90.8108
92.2248
90.9870
88.5438
105.5739
102.8346
97.0023
100.3057
98.6888

EISI (dB)
50.7769
44.0331
44.5892
65.0391
55.8483
.55.0165
66.7478
57.5924
55.9667

Table III. 16-channel transmultiplexers and filter banks designed by the proposed method

N
64
64
64
96
96
96
128
128
128

K=N/2M
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4

Window
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki
Blackman
Kaiser
Saramki

2.9661
3.1973
3.2185
2.1873
2.4724
2.4677
1.6580
1.8888
1.8846

Eamp
0.1064
0.1132
0.1170
0.0380
0.0537
0.0528
0.0016
0.0034
0.0036

Ealias (dB)
22.5434
22.0594
21.9656
31.5911
28.4338
28.5715
48.5799
42.1487
42.3440

EICI (dB)
26.9199
25.0879
24.9693
55.3548
43.1023
43.4864
90.8795
90.4121
89.7817

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

EISI (dB)
23.7833
23.3184
23.1546
32.9065
29.7515
29.8907
50.8803
44.6405
44.8614

Figure 3. Various responses for 32-channel-TMUX systems designed using the proposed technique (solid line) and the LinVaidyanathan technique (dashed line). (a) Amplitude responses for the prototype filters. (b) Synthesis filter bank. (c) Total aliasing
distortions as given by Eq. (14b). (d) Amplitude responses between the first input and output sequences.

(a)

(b)

Figure 4. Amplitude responses |T0(ej)| for the unaliased component for 32-channel FB systems. (a) Proposed technique. (b) LinVaidyanathan technique. Because of the periodicity of |T0(ej)| is /32, only a part of the response is shown.

(b)
(a)
Figure 5: The earliest and retarded lines show first input and output sequence of TMUX system of Fig. 1 in an example practical
application, respectively. For more details, see the text. (a) Proposed technique. (b) Lin-Vaidyanathan technique.
Table IV. Quality measures of two techniques for generating
prototype filters for an example practical application. For
more details, see the text.

Method

Maxerror (dB)

SNR (dB)

32
32

Proposed
Lin-Vaidyanathan

-69.7457
-69.4564

31.2470
30.9577

5. Conclusions
This paper proposed an extremely fast technique for designing prototype filters for nearly perfect-reconstructing
(NPR) cosine-modulated maximally decimated transmultiplexers and multirate filter banks. The technique is based
on the windowing technique for finding the prototype filter
such that its 3-dB cutoff frequency is located at = /(2M).
Simulations indicated that good candidate windows resulting in very good NPR systems are the Blackman window
as well as the Kaiser and Saramki windows, where the adjustable parameter is selected to give approximately a 100dB stopband attenuation for the prototype filter.
Among the above-mentioned three windows, the
Blackman window resulted for some reason in transmultiplexers and filter banks with the properties closest to the
PR systems. Therefore, the future is devoted to finding a
window among the existing windows in the literature or
even to generating a new window for this purpose so that
the errors caused by the nearly perfect reconstruction property will be reduced even further.

[7]

[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]

[13]
[14]

[15]

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