Understanding the behaviour of Butterworth filter in DSP

Specific Domains Signal and Image Processing
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Hi all,
I’m using a highpass filter to isolate the oscillations from the trend in my signal. The filter I use for my time series signal is:

response = Highpass((𝑓/1); fs)
design = Butterworth(2)
filtered = filt(digitalfilter(response,design), signal)

Where fs is the sampling frequency, and 𝑓 is the frequency of the oscillations.

For some reason, the result is this:
Julia-Discourse-Buterworth

Can someone explain to me why I get this behavior at the beginning of the filtered signal? This drop is something I can’t really pinpoint the reason to, and not sure how to fix it.

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That’s the filter transient. A filter’s frequency response assumes an infinite-duration sinusoidal input – anything else produces transients. Transient response - Wikipedia

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Interesting thank you! Is there any possible way to create a filter that minimizes this effect in this case?

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The usual approach is to ignore the transient – just ignore the first few output samples. Another possibility is to use a FIR filter, which may have a shorter transient; in any case, their transient length is easier to predict (roughly half the filter order).

Another interesting resource here: Transient Response, Steady State, and Decay | Introduction to Digital Filters

You may also consider using filters especially conceived to remove DC trends; there’s a good selection here: Linear-phase DC Removal Filter - Rick Lyons

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