Design of FIR filters in the complex domain

The design of FIR digital filters with a complex-valued desired frequency response using the Chebyshev error is investigated. The complex approximation problem is converted into a real approximation problem which is nearly equivalent to the complex problem. A standard linear programming algorithm for the Chebyshev solution of overdetermined equations is used to solve the real approximation problem. Additional constraints are introduced which allow weighting of the phase and/or group delay of the approximation. Digital filters are designed which have nearly constant group delay in the passbands. The desired constant group delay which gives the minimum Chebyshev error is found to be smaller than that of a linear phase filter of the same length. These filters, in addition to having a smaller, approximately constant group delay, have better magnitude characteristics than exactly linear phase filters with the same length. The filters have nearly equiripple magnitude and group delay.