A low pass FIR filter for ECG Denoising in VHDL

In this VHDL project, a simple low pass FIR filter is implemented in VHDL for ECG Denoising. VHDL code for the FIR filter is fully presented. 

The VHDL code for the FIR filter is simulated and verified by comparing the simulated results in Modelsim with the correct results generated from Matlab. Sample ECG inputs are provided in input.txt files, the VHDL filter code reads those ECG files, apply digital filtering, and write the results into output.txt files for verification. 

It is obvious that one of the most critical steps in ECG digital signal processing is noise filtering because ECG signals are noisily affected by many different sources such as Baseline Wander, EMG interference, and power line noise. Those noises can be reduced by many filters as shown in the figure above. This project is to implement a low pass FIR Filter in VHDL to reduce high-frequency noise and power-line interference.

The specification of the filter as follows:

• Order: 10 
• Tap: 11
• 8-bit signed integer coefficients as shown below:

In this project, the regular implementation of the FIR filter as shown in the following figure is implemented in VHDL.

The FIR filter is basically implemented by using D-Flip-Flops, signed multipliers and adders. A basic block includes one N-bit register, one multiplier, and one adder. The VHDL generate statement is used to generate the full design using the basic block.

VHDL code for the low pass FIR filter:

Library IEEE;  
 USE IEEE.Std_logic_1164.all;   
 USE IEEE.Std_logic_signed.all;   
 -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects   
 -- LOW pass FIR filter for ECG Denoising
 -- VHDL project: VHDL code for FIR filter   
 entity FIR_RI is  -- VHDL projects
 generic (  
           input_width          : integer     :=8               ;-- set input width by user  
           output_width     : integer     :=16               ;-- set output width by user  
           coef_width          : integer     :=8               ;-- set coefficient width by user  
           tap                    : integer     :=11               ;-- set filter order  
           guard               : integer     :=0)               ;-- log2(tap)+1  
 port(  
      Din          : in      std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0)     ;-- input data  
      Clk          : in      std_logic                                             ;-- input clk  
      reset     : in      std_logic                                             ;-- input reset  
      Dout     : out      std_logic_vector(output_width-1 downto 0))     ;-- output data  
 end FIR_RI;  
 architecture behaivioral of FIR_RI is  
 -- N bit Register  
 component N_bit_Reg   
 generic (  
           input_width          : integer     :=8  
           );  
   port(  
    Q : out std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0);     
    Clk :in std_logic;    
    reset :in std_logic;   
    D :in std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0)    
   );  
 end component;
 -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects  
 type Coeficient_type is array (1 to tap) of std_logic_vector(coef_width-1 downto 0);  
 -----------------------------------FIR filter coefficients----------------------------------------------------------------  
 constant coeficient: coeficient_type :=   
                               (     X"F1",  
                                    X"F3",  
                                    X"07",  
                                    X"26",  
                                    X"42",  
                                    X"4E",  
                                    X"42",  
                                    X"26",  
                                    X"07",  
                                    X"F3",  
                                    X"F1"                                     
                                    );                                         
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                     
 type shift_reg_type is array (0 to tap-1) of std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0);  
 signal shift_reg : shift_reg_type;  
 type mult_type is array (0 to tap-1) of std_logic_vector(input_width+coef_width-1 downto 0);  
 signal mult : mult_type;  
 type ADD_type is array (0 to tap-1) of std_logic_vector(input_width+coef_width-1 downto 0);  
 signal ADD: ADD_type;  
 begin  
 -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects
        shift_reg(0)     <= Din;  
           mult(0)<= Din*coeficient(1);  
           ADD(0)<= Din*coeficient(1);  
           GEN_FIR:  
           for i in 0 to tap-2 generate  
           begin  
                 -- N-bit reg unit  
                 N_bit_Reg_unit : N_bit_Reg generic map (input_width => 8)   
                 port map ( Clk => Clk,   
                                    reset => reset,  
                                    D => shift_reg(i),  
                                    Q => shift_reg(i+1)  
                                    );       
                -- filter multiplication  
                mult(i+1)<= shift_reg(i+1)*coeficient(i+2);  
                -- filter conbinational addition  
                ADD(i+1)<=ADD(i)+mult(i+1);  
           end generate GEN_FIR;  
           Dout <= ADD(tap-1);  
 end Architecture;  

 Library IEEE;  
 USE IEEE.Std_logic_1164.all;  
 
 -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects   
 -- LOW pass FIR filter for ECG Denoising
 -- VHDL project: VHDL code for FIR filter
 -- N-bit Register in VHDL 
 entity N_bit_Reg is   
 generic (  
           input_width          : integer     :=8  
           );  
   port(  
    Q : out std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0);    
    Clk :in std_logic;    
    reset :in std_logic;  
    D :in std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0)    
   );  
 end N_bit_Reg;  
  -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects  
 architecture Behavioral of N_bit_Reg is   
 begin   
      process(Clk,reset)  
      begin   
           if (reset = '1') then  
                Q <= (others => '0');  
        elsif ( rising_edge(Clk) ) then  
                Q <= D;   
       end if;      
      end process;   
 end Behavioral;

Testbench VHDL code for the FIR filter:

 Library IEEE;  
 USE IEEE.Std_logic_1164.all;    
 USE IEEE.numeric_std.all;  
 Use STD.TEXTIO.all;  
  -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects
  -- VHDL project: VHDL code for FIR filter 
  -- Testbench VHDL code for FIR Filter 
 entity TB_FIR is  
 end TB_FIR; 
 architecture behaivioral of TB_FIR is  
 Component FIR_RI is  
 generic (  
           input_width          : integer     :=8               ; -- set input width by user  
           output_width     : integer     :=16               ; -- set output width by user  
           coef_width          : integer     :=8               ; -- set coefficient width by user  
           tap                    : integer     :=11               ; -- set filter order  
           guard               : integer     :=4)                    ; -- log2(tap)+1  
 port(  
      Din          : in      std_logic_vector(input_width-1 downto 0)     ;     -- input data  
      Clk          : in      std_logic                              ;               -- input clk  
      reset     : in      std_logic                                   ;               -- input reset  
      Dout     : out      std_logic_vector(output_width-1 downto 0))     ;-- output data  
 end Component;  
 signal Din          :      std_logic_vector(7 downto 0)     ;  
 signal Clk          :      std_logic:='0'                              ;  
 signal reset     :      std_logic:='1'                              ;       
 signal output_ready     :      std_logic:='0';                                
 signal Dout          :      std_logic_vector(15 downto 0)     ;  
 signal input: std_logic_vector(7 downto 0);  
 file my_input : TEXT open READ_MODE is "input101.txt";  
 file my_output : TEXT open WRITE_MODE is "output101_functional_sim.txt";  
 begin  
   -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects
   FIR_int : FIR_RI  
           generic map(  
                          input_width          =>     8,  
           output_width     =>     16,  
           coef_width          =>     8,  
           tap                 =>     11,  
                          guard               =>     0)  
           port map     (  
                          Din                    => Din,  
                          Clk                    => Clk,  
                          reset               => reset,  
                          Dout               => Dout  
                );  
           process(clk)  
           begin  
           Clk          <= not Clk after 10 ns;  
           end process;  
           reset     <= '1', '1' after 100 ns, '0' after 503 ns; 
     -- fpga4student.com: FPGA projects, VHDL projects, Verilog projects 
     -- Writing output result to output file 
           process(clk)  
           variable my_input_line : LINE;  
           variable input1: integer;  
           begin  
                if reset ='1' then  
                     Din <= (others=> '0');  
                     input <= (others=> '0');  
                     output_ready <= '0';  
                elsif rising_edge(clk) then                      
                     readline(my_input, my_input_line);  
                     read(my_input_line,input1);  
                     Din <= std_logic_vector(to_signed(input1, 8));  
                     --Din<=input(7 downto 0);  
                     output_ready <= '1';  
                end if;  
           end process;                      
           process(clk)  
           variable my_output_line : LINE;  
           variable input1: integer;  
           begin  
                if falling_edge(clk) then  
                     if output_ready ='1' then  
                          write(my_output_line, to_integer(signed(Dout)));  
                          writeline(my_output,my_output_line);  
                     end if;  
                end if;  
           end process;   
                                
 end Architecture; 

After running simulations in Modelsim, the filtered output is written into output.txt for verification. The verification is done by comparing the output file with the correct result generated from Matlab.

Download sample inputs and output from Matlab

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