
1
Novel low-pass filter with adjustable parameters
of exponential-type forgetting
Ivo Petr´
aˇ
s, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—In this paper, a novel form of Gaussian filter, the
Mittag-Leffler filter, is presented. This new filter uses a Mittag-
Leffler function in the probability density function. Such Mittag-
Leffler distribution is used in the convolution kernel of the
filter. The filter has three parameters that may adjust the curve
shape due to the filter forgetting factor. Illustrative examples
present the main advantages of the proposed filter as compared
to classical Gaussian filtering techniques. Some implementation
notes, together with the Matlab function, are also presented.
Index Terms—Exponential-type forgetting, Gaussian function,
Gaussian filter, Mittag-Leffler function, Mittag-Leffler filter.
I. INTRODUCTION
FILTERING is processing a signal whereby some un-
wanted components or properties are removed from the
signal or some aspects of the signal are suppressed. It often
means removing some frequencies or frequency bands from
the signal. However, we do not have to use filters exclusively
in the frequency domain, and certain frequency components
can be removed without having to act in the frequency domain.
Filters are widely used, for example, in signal processing in
electronics and telecommunications, in radars, control systems
sensors, as well as image processing, and computer graphics.
Various forms of filters are used, for instance, the Laplacian
filter [1], Bayesian filter [2], Gaussian filter [3], and so on.
This paper describes a new filter based on the famous
Gaussian filter. It is well known that this filter is often used
in many areas of signal and image processing for smoothing
and noise reduction, e.g., [4], [5], [6], [7]. It is a convolutional
filter that uses a Gaussian function as a convolution kernel and
mathematically adjusts the input signal by convolution with
a Gaussian function. In other words, a Gaussian filter is a filter
whose impulse response is a Gaussian function. Among other
things, these filters have the important property that they do
not overshoot at the input of the step function and, at the same
time, minimize the rise and fall time. This behavior is closely
related to the Gaussian filter having the minimum possible
group delay.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows:
•generalization of the Gaussian filter to the novel form,
based on the Mittag-Leffler distribution function,
•suggestion of the implementation algorithm for the new
Mittag-Leffler filter with adjustable forgetting parameters.
Manuscript received: October 3, 2022;
This work was supported in part by the Slovak Grant Agency for Science
under grant VEGA 1/0365/19, by the Slovak Research and Development
Agency under contracts No. APVV-14-0892 and No. APVV-18-0526, and
by Army Research Office under grant No. W911NF-22-1-0264.
Ivo Petr´
aˇ
s is with the Faculty of BERG, Technical University of Koˇ
sice,
Nˇ
emcovej 3, 042 00, Koˇ
sice, Slovak Republic (e-mail: ivo.petras@tuke.sk).
The structure of this paper is as follows. Section I briefly
describes the introduction to the problem. Section II presents
the essential mathematical tools. The main results are shown in
Section III. The illustrative examples are presented in Section
IV to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed new filter.
Finally, some concluding remarks are given in Section V.
II. PRELIMINARIES
A. Gaussian function and Gaussian distribution
The Gaussian function, named after Johann Carl Friedrich
Gauss is a function that can be expressed in elemental form
f(x) = ae−(x−b)2
2c2,(1)
for arbitrary real parameters a,b, and c > 0.
Gaussian functions (1) are often used in statistics to repre-
sent the probability density function (PDF) of a normal shifted
distribution (a.k.a. Gauss distribution) for a real-valued random
variable with expected value (or mean) b=µand variance
c2=σ2. The general form of its PDF φ(x)is
φ(x;σ) = 1
σ√2πe−1
2(x−µ
σ)2,(2)
where the variable µ∈Ris the mean (or expectation) of the
distribution, while the positive variable σ∈Ris its standard
deviation. The variance of this Gauss distribution is then σ2.
The simplest case of the normal distribution is known as the
normal unit distribution or the standard normal distribution.
This is a particular case when σ= 1 and µ= 0. It means that
xhas variance, standard deviation of 1, and mean of 0.
Except for the mentioned utilization of the Gaussian func-
tion as PDF for normal distribution, we may use it in signal
processing to define Gaussian filters and image processing,
where a two-dimensional Gaussian filter is used for blurs.
Moreover, the exponential law is the classical approach
to studying the dynamics of systems, but there are many
systems where dynamics obey a faster or slower law than the
exponential law. In that case, the Mittag-Leffler function can
best describe such anomalous dynamics changes [8].
B. Mittag-Leffler function and Mittag-Leffler distribution
The Mittag-Leffler function Eα,β (z), named after Magnus
Gustaf Mittag-Leffler, is a special function that depends on two
parameters, α, and β. It may be expressed by the following
series [9]:
Eα,β (z) =
∞
X
n=0
zn
Γ(αn +β), α, β > 0, z ∈C,(3)
arXiv:2210.01195v1 [math.DS] 3 Oct 2022