A Cascaded Structure for Generalized Graph Filters

Abstract

One of the main challenges of graph filters is the stability of their design. While classical graph filters allow for a stable design using optimal polynomial approximation theory, generalized graph filters tend to suffer from the ill-conditioning of the involved system matrix. This issue, accentuated for increasing graph filter orders, naturally leads to very large (small) filter coefficients or error saturation, casting a shadow on the benefits of these richer graph filter structures. In addition to this, data-driven design/learning of graph filters with large filter orders, even in the case of classical graph filters, suffers from the eigenvalue spread of the input data covariance matrix and mode coupling, leading to convergence-related issues as the ones observed when identifying time-domain filters with large orders. To alleviate these conditioning and convergence problems, and to reduce the overall design complexity, in this work, we propose a cascaded implementation of generalized graph filters and an efficient algorithm for designing the graph filter coefficients in both model- and data-driven settings. Further, we establish the connections of this implementation with so-called graph convolutional neural networks and demonstrate the performance of the proposed structure in different network applications. By the proposed approach, further error reduction and better design stability are achieved.