Blackman window

The Blackman window coefficients are given by the following formula

$$a(k)=0.42-0.5 \, \cos(\frac{2\pi k}{N-1})+0.08 \, \cos(\frac{4 \pi k}{N-1})$$

where N is the length of the filter and k = 0, 1, …, N – 1.

An example Blackman window

Consider a finite impulse response (FIR) low pass filter of length N = 201. The following is the Blackman window.

Given a sampling frequency of 2000 Hz and a filter cutoff frequency of 40 Hz, the impulse response of the filter with a rectangular window (with no window) and with the Blackman window is as follows.

The magnitude response of the same filter is shown on the graph below.

Assuming the Blackman window is of sufficient length, it will usually produce stop band attenuation of approximately -75 dB (although it could be as high as -25 dB for short filters) and ripples in the pass band of approximately +/- 0.003 dB. Given the sampling frequency f_s, a filter of length N with the Blackman window transitions from 0 dB to -20 dB in a transition band of approximately f_s (4.68 / N) and to the stop band in a transition band of approximately f_s (6.46 / N). This means, for example, that an appropriate filter length, given a desired transition band, is N = 6.46 / (transition / f_s).

Measures for the Blackman window

The following graph compares the discrete Fourier transform of the Blackman window and the rectangular window.

The Blackman window measures are as follows.

Generalized Blackman windows

In principle, the window above is the most commonly used Blackman window. A more general definition of the Blackman window is

$$a(k)=a_0-a_1 \, \cos(\frac{2\pi k}{N-1})+a_2 \, \cos(\frac{4 \pi k}{N-1})$$ $$a_0=\frac{1-\alpha}{2}, a_1=\frac{1}{2}, a_2=\frac{\alpha}{2}$$

The Blackman window above uses α = 0.16, which is a common approximation of the exact Blackman window with a₀ = 7938 / 18608, a₁ = 9240 / 18608, and a₂ = 1430 / 18608.

As α approaches zero or 1, the Blackman window becomes a cosine window (of two different frequencies in the two different cases). The following is the Blackman window for three different values of α: 0.05, 0.16, and 0.4.

The following are the corresponding impulse responses for the same filter used in the first example above.

The following are the corresponding magnitude responses.

The Blackman window is a generalized cosine window (see Hamming window).

Measures for the generalized Blackman windows

The following are measures for selected generalized Blackman windows.

See also:
Window