A non stationary/infinite precision system analogy for fixed-point digital adaptive filter analysis

Qualitative and quantitative performances of adaptive filters can significantly vary when they are implemented in finite precision arithmetic. Analyzing theoretically such performances is very complex. In this paper, we present a new approach which simplifies both transient and steady state analysis of implemented adaptive filters. Indeed, the finite precision adaptive identification scheme in a stationary context is replaced by an equivalent simple infinite precision scheme in a specific non stationary context; where the channel to be identified has stochastic time-variations.