Design of Optimal Digital IIR Filters using the Genetic Algorithm

This paper presents an evolutionary design of digital IIR filters using the genetic algorithm (GA) with modified genetic operators and real-valued encoding. Conventional digital IIR filter design methods involve algebraic transformations of the transfer function of an analog low-pass filter (LPF) that satisfies prescribed filter specifications. Other types of frequency-selective digital filters as high-pass (HPF), band-pass (BPF), and band-stop (BSF) filters are obtained by appropriate transformations of a prototype low-pass filter. In the GA-based digital IIR filter design scheme, filter coefficients are represented as a set of real-valued genes in a chromosome. Each chromosome represents the structure and weights of an individual filter. GA directly finds the coefficients of the desired filter transfer function through genetic search for given filter specifications of minimum filter order. Crossover and mutation operators are selected to ensure the stability of resulting IIR filters. Other types of filters can be found independently from the filter specifications, not from algebraic transformations.