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Bandwidth of a Moving Average Filter

August 3, 2022

Introduction

This blog shows how to approximate the 3 dB cutoff frequency of the moving average filter.

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Moving Average Filter Impulse Response

The boxcar filter or boxcar window is an FIR filter whose weights are all 1:

(1) $\begin{equation*}h_{box}[n] = \begin{cases}1, & 0 \le n \le N-1 \\0, & \text{otherwise}.\end{cases}\end{equation*}$

The filter weights in (1) are normalized in the time domain to create a moving average (MA) filter

(2) $\begin{equation*}h_{ma}[n] = \begin{cases}1/N, & 0 \le n \le N-1 \\0, & \text{otherwise}.\end{cases}\end{equation*}$

Magnitude-Squared Frequency Response

The magnitude-squared of the frequency response for the boxcar window was derived in a previous blog,

(3) $\begin{equation*}\left| H_{box}\left( e^{j\omega} \right) \right|^2 = \frac{1 - \cos \left( \omega N \right)}{1 - \cos \left( \omega \right)}.\end{equation*}$

The moving average is normalized by a factor of 1/N therefore the magnitude-squared of the moving average is normalized by a factor of $1/N^2$ ,

(4) $\begin{equation*}\begin{split}\left| H_{ma}\left( e^{j\omega} \right) \right|^2 & = \frac{1}{N^2} \left| H_{box}\left( e^{j\omega} \right) \right|^2 \\& =\frac{1 - \cos \left( \omega N \right)}{N^2\left(1 - \cos \left( \omega \right)\right)}\end{split}\end{equation*}$

Gain at Zero-Frequency (omega=0)

There are multiple bandwidth definitions (see Bandwidth Measures). The focus of this blog is the half-power or 3 dB measure. The 3 dB bandwidth in decibels is

(5) $\begin{equation*}10\text{log}_{10}\left( 1/2 \right) \approx - 3~\text{dB}.\end{equation*}$

The moving average filter is a low-pass filter whose magnitude is the maximum value at $\omega = 0$ . Therefore to measure the half-energy point the maximum value has to be calculated, which is (4) at $\omega = 0$ ,

(6) $\begin{equation*}\begin{split}\left| H_{ma}\left( e^{j\omega} \right) \right|^2 |_{\omega=0} & = \frac{1 - \cos \left( 0 \right)}{N^2\left(1 - \cos \left( 0 \right)\right)} \\& = \frac{1}{N^2}. \\\end{split}\end{equation*}$

Finding the 3 dB Bandwidth

The 3 dB bandwidth is the frequency $\omega$ at which the magnitude-squared is 1/2 the maximum value,

(7) $\begin{equation*}\frac{1}{2} \left| H_{ma}\left( e^{j\omega} \right) \right|^2 |_{\omega=0} = \frac{1}{2N^2}.\end{equation*}$

After substituting (4) equation (7) can now be written as

(8) $\begin{equation*}\frac{1}{2N^2} = \frac{1 - \cos \left( \omega N \right)}{N^2\left(1 - \cos \left( \omega \right)\right)}\end{equation*}$

which is simplified to

(9) $\begin{equation*}\frac{1}{2} = \frac{1 - \cos \left( \omega N \right)}{1 - \cos \left( \omega \right)}.\end{equation*}$

Finding a closed-form solution for (9) is not trivial (see Wolfram’s solution when N=5), but the bandwidth can be approximated as approximately

(10) $\begin{equation*}\omega_{3dB} = \pi/N.\end{equation*}$

Figures 1-3 show the cutoff frequency approximation (10) for N=5, 10 and 16.

The cutoff approximation (10) is not an exact value for the frequency but it is a reasonable approximation.

Conclusion

The moving average filter is a normalized boxcar window or boxcar filter. The 3 dB point is where the magnitude-squared is 0.5. The 3 dB bandwidth of a moving average filter length N can be approximated by $\omega = \pi/N$ .