The filter design method described in the design of optimum equi ripple linear phase FIR filters is formulated as a chebyshev approximation problem.

The chebyshev approximation problem is viewed as an optimum design criterion on the sense that the weighted approximation error between the desired frequency response and the actual frequency response is spread evenly across the pass band and evenly across the stop band of the filter minimizing the maximum error. The resulting filter designs have ripples in both pass band and stop band.

The weighting function on the approximation error allows to choose the relative size of the errors in the different frequency bands. In particular, it is convenient to normalize W(ω) to unity in the stop band and set W(ω)=δ2/δ1 in the pass band.

If the filter has a anti-symmetric unit sample response, then we know that

The real valued desired frequency response Hdr(ω) is simply defined to be unity in the pass band and zero in the stop band.

Having the solution for P(ω), we can now compute the error function E(ω) from

|E(ω)|≥δ for some frequencies on the dense set, then a new set of frequencies corresponding to the L+2 largest peaks of |E(ω)| are selected and computation is repeated. Since the new set of L+2 extremal frequencies are selected to increase in each iteration until it converges to the upper bound, this implies that when |E(ω)|≤δ for all frequencies on the dense set, the optimal solution has been found in terms of the polynomial H(ω).

Let us consider the design of a low pass filter with the stop band edge frequency ωs and the ripple in the stop band is δ2, then from the general specifications of the chebyshev filter, in the stop band the filter frequency response should satisfy the condition

If the filter has a symmetric unit sample response, then we know that

Let us consider the design of a low pass filter with the pass band edge frequency ωP and the ripple in the pass band is δ1, then from the general specifications of the chebyshev filter, in the pass band the filter frequency response should satisfy the condition