IIR is the abbreviated notation for the infinite impulse response digital filters. The basic properties of IIR filters are:

1. low order,
2. nonlinear phase,
3. potential instability.

Design of an IIR filter starts by selecting Filter Designer Tool from the main menu of the mikroBasic compiler for dsPIC. The option IIR parameters on the left-hand side of the menu is selected. The form shown in Fig. 15-12 appears. In the part Device setup appear the clock and designation of the used microcontroller. In the part Input Signal, two parameters, sampling frequency and input channel of the AD converter should be selected. The sampling frequency has to be at least twice as high as the maximum frequency of the input signal. If, e.g. the input signal is in the range 230Hz – 7500Hz, the minimum sampling frequency is 15kHz. Of course, one never selects the minimum frequency, thus in this case the sampling frequency of at least 20kHz should be selected. In the part Filter settings the type of filter is selected first:

• Lowpass filter,
• Highpass filter,
• Bandpass filter,
• Bandstop filter.

Then, the order of the filter is selected. As the order of the filter increases, the selectivity of the filter will be higher (narrower transition zone), but the complexity of the filter will increase as a consequence of the more memory required for storing the samples and longer processing. The maximum sampling frequency depends on the length of processing (filter order) and selected clock. After the type of IIR filter is selected, the method of IIR filter design can be selected, as shown in Fig. 15-13. The basic IIR filter design methods are:

1. Butterworth – Maximally flat amplitude characteristic at 0Hz frequency. The amplitude characteristc is a smooth curve.
2. Chebyshev I – The minimum uniform ripple of the amplitude characteristc in the passband.
3. Chebyshev II – Known as the Inverse Chebyshev filter. The amplitude characteristc is maximally flat at 0Hz (like Butterworth filter). The least variation of the amplitude characteristc in the bandstop range.

Depending on the selected design method and type of IIR filter, it is possible to enter the corresponding parameters, whereas the remaining filter parameters will be calculated automatically in the sourse of filter calculation. If the Bandpass filter and Chebyshev I method are selected, the parameters to be entered are: the maximum attenuation in the bandpass range Ap and bandpass boundary frequencies Wp1 and Wp2. When all IIR filter parameters have been entered, design of the filter is carried out simply by selecting one of the options on the left-hand side of Filter Designer Tool (IIR Prototype, IIR Frequency, mikroPascal, mikroBasic, mikroC). In the part IIR Prototype one can see the transfer functions of the analogue filter prototype, analogue filter, and digital filter. The analogue prototype filter and analogue filter are the transfer functions obtained in the course of calculations of the characteristcs of the digital filter. For a set of selected parameters, one obtains transfer functions as shown in Fig. 15-15. In the part IIR Frequency one can see the amplitude characteristic of the obtained IIR filter. The present case is shown in Figs. 15-16 and 15-17. The final product is the code in Pascal, Basic or C which could be accessed by selecting mikroPascal, mikroBasic or mikroC in the left-hand part of Filter Designer Tool.