High-Speed Hardware Implementation of Fixed and Runtime Variable Window Length 1-D Median Filters

Abstract

Nonlinear digital filters play an important role in digital signal processing applications. In this brief, a novel architecture is proposed for the hardware implementation of fixed and runtime variable window length one-dimensional median filters. In the proposed architecture, the maximum working clock frequency is almost independent of the median filter window length, whereas the hardware complexity is proportional to the number of samples in the window. This feature enables the construction of filters with relatively large window lengths with negligible reduction in the maximum clock frequency, whereas in previous architectures, the maximum clock frequency significantly drops as the window length is increased. The benchmark results show the efficiency of the proposed architecture in comparison with state-of-the-art techniques.