Notes on Digital Signal Processing: Practical Recipes for Design, Analysis and Implementation

Note 37. Designing FIR Filters: Parks-McClellan Algorithm

The Parks-McClellan algorithm is by far the most widely used technique for designing FIR filters. For many years, this algorithm was called the Remez algorithm or the Remez exchange. However, the recent trend has been to name the approach in honor of Thomas Parks and John McClellan, the two individuals who first publicized the utility of using the Remez exchange for designing FIR filters.

An FIR approximation to some ideal desired response typically exhibits error ripples around the ideal response, as shown in Figure 37.1(a). The Parks-McClellan (PM) algorithm is based on the fact that, for a given filter length, the worst-case error is minimized when all of the error extrema are equal ...