filtersignal-processinghighpass-filter

Applying a high-pass filter on constant signal


I recently implemented a Butterworth high-pass filter (2nd order). Everything seems to work fine, except that I have a question when applying such a filter to a constant signal. As there are no high-frequency components in a constant signal, I would expect the filter to yield a constant 0 signal.

In the plots below are my results. There seems to be ``ripple'' in the first couple of frames before the high-pass filtered signal (correctly) converges to 0.

Is this a logical result from applying a Butterworth high-pass filter on a constant signal, or might there be a bug in my code?

EDIT: I've created the same filter in Octave, resulting in the same output. This indicates that we're indeed looking at the step response, as Paul R. indicates.

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Solution

  • The input to your filter is essentially a step function (since it has value 0 prior to t = 0, and a positive value for t > 0), so you see the step response of the filter, hence the initial ringing. This is expected behaviour, and after a suitable amount of time the step response will have settled to zero.