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Exact Near Instantaneous Frequency Formulas Best at Zero Crossings

Cedron Dawg July 20, 2017
Introduction

This is an article that is the last of my digression from trying to give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). It is along the lines of the last two.

In those articles, I presented exact formulas for calculating the frequency of a pure tone signal as instantaneously as possible in the time domain. Although the formulas work for both real and complex signals (something that does not happen with frequency domain formulas), for real signals they...


Exact Near Instantaneous Frequency Formulas Best at Peaks (Part 2)

Cedron Dawg June 11, 20174 comments
Introduction

This is an article that is a continuation of a digression from trying to give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). It is recommended that my previous article "Exact Near Instantaneous Frequency Formulas Best at Peaks (Part 1)"[1] be read first as many sections of this article are directly dependent upon it.

A second family of formulas for calculating the frequency of a single pure tone in a short interval in the time domain is presented. It...


Modeling a Continuous-Time System with Matlab

Neil Robertson June 6, 20172 comments

Many of us are familiar with modeling a continuous-time system in the frequency domain using its transfer function H(s) or H(jω).  However, finding the time response can be challenging, and traditionally involves finding the inverse Laplace transform of H(s).  An alternative way to get both time and frequency responses is to transform H(s) to a discrete-time system H(z) using the impulse-invariant transform [1,2].  This method provides an exact match to the continuous-time...


How to Find a Fast Floating-Point atan2 Approximation

Nic Taylor May 26, 201716 comments
Context Over a short period of time, I came across nearly identical approximations of the two parameter arctangent function, atan2, developed by different companies, in different countries, and even in different decades. Fascinated with how the coefficients used in these approximations were derived, I set out to find them. This atan2 implementation is based around a rational approximation of arctangent on the domain -1 to 1:

$$ atan(z) \approx \dfrac{z}{1.0 +...


Exact Near Instantaneous Frequency Formulas Best at Peaks (Part 1)

Cedron Dawg May 12, 2017
Introduction

This is an article that is a another digression from trying to give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Although it is not as far off as the last blog article.

A new family of formulas for calculating the frequency of a single pure tone in a short interval in the time domain is presented. They are a generalization of Equation (1) from Rick Lyons' recent blog article titled "Sinusoidal Frequency Estimation Based on Time-Domain Samples"[1]. ...


A Recipe for a Common Logarithm Table

Cedron Dawg April 29, 2017
Introduction

This is an article that is a digression from trying to give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT).

A method for building a table of Base 10 Logarithms, also known as Common Logarithms, is featured using math that can be done with paper and pencil. The reader is assumed to have some familiarity with logarithm functions. This material has no dependency on the material in my previous blog articles.

If you were ever curious about how...


Sinusoidal Frequency Estimation Based on Time-Domain Samples

Rick Lyons April 20, 201719 comments

The topic of estimating a noise-free real or complex sinusoid's frequency, based on fast Fourier transform (FFT) samples, has been presented in recent blogs here on dsprelated.com. For completeness, it's worth knowing that simple frequency estimation algorithms exist that do not require FFTs to be performed . Below I present three frequency estimation algorithms that use time-domain samples, and illustrate a very important principle regarding so called "exact"...


Three Bin Exact Frequency Formulas for a Pure Complex Tone in a DFT

Cedron Dawg April 13, 20171 comment
Introduction

This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving exact formulas for the frequency of a complex tone in a DFT. This time it is three bin versions. Although the problem is similar to the two bin version in my previous blog article "A Two Bin Exact Frequency Formula for a Pure Complex Tone in a DFT"[1], a slightly different approach is taken using linear algebra concepts. Because of an extra degree of freedom...


A Two Bin Exact Frequency Formula for a Pure Complex Tone in a DFT

Cedron Dawg March 20, 20179 comments
Introduction

This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving an exact formula for the frequency of a complex tone in a DFT. It is basically a parallel treatment to the real case given in Exact Frequency Formula for a Pure Real Tone in a DFT. Since a real signal is the sum of two complex signals, the frequency formula for a single complex tone signal is a lot less complicated than for the real case.

Theoretical...

DFT Bin Value Formulas for Pure Complex Tones

Cedron Dawg March 17, 2017
Introduction

This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving an analytical formula for the DFT of pure complex tones and an alternative variation. It is basically a parallel treatment to the real case given in DFT Bin Value Formulas for Pure Real Tones. In order to understand how a multiple tone signal acts in a DFT it is necessary to first understand how a single pure tone acts. Since a DFT is a linear transform, the...


Generating Partially Correlated Random Variables

Harry Commin March 23, 201921 comments
IntroductionIt is often useful to be able to generate two or more signals with specific cross-correlations. Or, more generally, we would like to specify an $\left(N \times N\right)$ covariance matrix, $\mathbf{R}_{xx}$, and generate $N$ signals which will produce this covariance matrix.

There are many applications in which this technique is useful. I discovered a version of this method while analysing radar systems, but the same approach can be used in a very wide range of...


Model Signal Impairments at Complex Baseband

Neil Robertson December 11, 20195 comments

In this article, we develop complex-baseband models for several signal impairments: interfering carrier, multipath, phase noise, and Gaussian noise.  To provide concrete examples, we’ll apply the impairments to a QAM system. The impairment models are Matlab functions that each use at most seven lines of code.  Although our example system is QAM, the models can be used for any complex-baseband signal.

I used a very simple complex-baseband model of a QAM system in my last


Multilayer Perceptrons and Event Classification with data from CODEC using Scilab and Weka

David Norwood November 25, 2015

For my first blog, I thought I would introduce the reader to Scilab [1] and Weka [2]. In order to illustrate how they work, I will put together a script in Scilab that will sample using the microphone and CODEC on your PC and save the waveform as a CSV file.


Modeling Anti-Alias Filters

Neil Robertson September 26, 2021

Digitizing a signal using an Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) usually requires an anti-alias filter, as shown in Figure 1a.  In this post, we’ll develop models of lowpass Butterworth and Chebyshev anti-alias filters, and compute the time domain and frequency domain output of the ADC for an example input signal.  We’ll also model aliasing of Gaussian noise.  I hope the examples make the textbook explanations of aliasing seem a little more real.  Of course, modeling of...


Exponential Smoothing with a Wrinkle

Cedron Dawg December 17, 20154 comments
Introduction

This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by providing a set of preprocessing filters to improve the resolution of the DFT. Because of the exponential nature of sinusoidal functions, they have special mathematical properties when exponential smoothing is applied to them. These properties are derived and explained in this blog article.

Basic Exponential Smoothing

Exponential smoothing is also known as...


Add the Hilbert Transformer to Your DSP Toolkit, Part 1

Neil Robertson November 22, 20224 comments

In some previous articles, I made use of the Hilbert transformer, but did not explain its theory in any detail.  In this article, I’ll dig a little deeper into how the Hilbert Transformer works.  Understanding the Hilbert Transformer involves a modest amount of mathematics, but the payoff in useful applications is worth it.

As we’ll learn, a Hilbert Transformer is just a particular type of Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter.  In Part 1 of this article, I’ll...


Third-Order Distortion of a Digitally-Modulated Signal

Neil Robertson June 9, 2020
Analog designers are always harping about amplifier third-order distortion.  Why?  In this article, we’ll look at why third-order distortion is important, and simulate a QAM signal with third-order distortion.

In the following analysis, we assume that signal phase at the amplifier output is not a function of amplitude.  With this assumption, the output y of a non-ideal amplifier can be written as a power series of the input signal x:

$$y=...


There and Back Again: Time of Flight Ranging between Two Wireless Nodes

Qasim Chaudhari October 23, 20175 comments

With the growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) products, the number of applications requiring an estimate of range between two wireless nodes in indoor channels is growing very quickly as well. Therefore, localization is becoming a red hot market today and will remain so in the coming years.

One question that is perplexing is that many companies now a days are offering cm level accurate solutions using RF signals. The conventional wireless nodes usually implement synchronization...


Setting Carrier to Noise Ratio in Simulations

Neil Robertson April 11, 2021

When simulating digital receivers, we often want to check performance with added Gaussian noise.  In this article, I’ll derive the simple equations for the rms noise level needed to produce a desired carrier to noise ratio (CNR or C/N).  I also provide a short Matlab function to generate a noise vector of the desired level for a given signal vector.

Definition of C/N

The Carrier to noise ratio is defined as the ratio of average signal power to noise power for a modulated...


Phase and Amplitude Calculation for a Pure Complex Tone in a DFT

Cedron Dawg January 6, 2018
Introduction

This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving exact formulas to calculate the phase and amplitude of a pure complex tone from a DFT bin value and knowing the frequency. This is a much simpler problem to solve than the corresponding case for a pure real tone which I covered in an earlier blog article[1]. In the noiseless single tone case, these equations will be exact. In the presence of noise or other tones...