Improved Three Bin Exact Frequency Formula for a Pure Real Tone in a DFT
Introduction
This is an article to hopefully give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by extending the exact two bin formulas for the frequency of a real tone in a DFT to the three bin case. This article is a direct extension of my prior article "Two Bin Exact Frequency Formulas for a Pure Real Tone in a DFT"[1]. The formulas derived in the previous article are also presented in this article in the computational order, rather than the indirect order they were...
There and Back Again: Time of Flight Ranging between Two Wireless Nodes
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...
Two Bin Exact Frequency Formulas for a Pure Real Tone in a DFT
IntroductionThis is an article to hopefully give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving exact formulas for the frequency of a real tone in a DFT. This time it is a two bin version. The approach taken is a vector based one similar to the approach used in "Three Bin Exact Frequency Formulas for a Pure Complex Tone in a DFT"[1]. The real valued formula presented in this article actually preceded, and was the basis for the complex three bin...
Exact Near Instantaneous Frequency Formulas Best at Zero Crossings
IntroductionThis 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)
IntroductionThis 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
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
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)
IntroductionThis 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
IntroductionThis 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
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"...
Digital PLL’s, Part 3 – Phase Lock an NCO to an External Clock
Sometimes you may need to phase-lock a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) to an external clock that is not related to the system clocks of your ASIC or FPGA. This situation is shown in Figure 1. Assuming your system has an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) available, you can sync to the external clock using the scheme shown in Figure 2. This time-domain PLL model is similar to the one presented in Part 1 of this series on digital PLL’s [1]. In that PLL, we...
Angle Addition Formulas from Euler's Formula
IntroductionThis is an article to hopefully give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), but only indirectly. The main intent is to get someone who is uncomfortable with complex numbers a little more used to them and relate them back to already known Trigonometric relationships done in Real values. It is essentially a followup to my first blog article "The Exponential Nature of the Complex Unit Circle".
Polar CoordinatesThe more common way of...
Digital PLL's -- Part 2
In Part 1, we found the time response of a 2nd order PLL with a proportional + integral (lead-lag) loop filter. Now let’s look at this PLL in the Z-domain [1, 2]. We will find that the response is characterized by a loop natural frequency ωn and damping coefficient ζ.
Having a Z-domain model of the DPLL will allow us to do three things:
Compute the values of loop filter proportional gain KL and integrator gain KI that give the desired loop natural...Design a DAC sinx/x Corrector
This post provides a Matlab function that designs linear-phase FIR sinx/x correctors. It includes a table of fixed-point sinx/x corrector coefficients for different DAC frequency ranges.
A sinx/x corrector is a digital (or analog) filter used to compensate for the sinx/x roll-off inherent in the digital to analog conversion process. In DSP math, we treat the digital signal applied to the DAC is a sequence of impulses. These are converted by the DAC into contiguous pulses...
Multimedia Processing with FFMPEG
FFMPEG is a set of libraries and a command line tool for encoding and decoding audio and video in many different formats. It is a free software project for manipulating/processing multimedia data. Many open source media players are based on FFMPEG libraries.
FFMPEG is developed under Linux but it can be compiled under most operating systems including Mac OS, Microsoft Windows. For more details about FFMPEG please refer
Design IIR Band-Reject Filters
In this post, I show how to design IIR Butterworth band-reject filters, and provide two Matlab functions for band-reject filter synthesis. Earlier posts covered IIR Butterworth lowpass [1] and bandpass [2] filters. Here, the function br_synth1.m designs band-reject filters based on null frequency and upper -3 dB frequency, while br_synth2.m designs them based on lower and upper -3 dB frequencies. I’ll discuss the differences between the two approaches later in this...
DFT Graphical Interpretation: Centroids of Weighted Roots of Unity
IntroductionThis is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by framing it in a graphical interpretation. The bin calculation formula is shown to be the equivalent of finding the center of mass, or centroid, of a set of points. Various examples are graphed to illustrate the well known properties of DFT bin values. This treatment will only consider real valued signals. Complex valued signals can be analyzed in a similar manner with...
ADC Clock Jitter Model, Part 1 – Deterministic Jitter
Analog to digital converters (ADC’s) have several imperfections that affect communications signals, including thermal noise, differential nonlinearity, and sample clock jitter [1, 2]. As shown in Figure 1, the ADC has a sample/hold function that is clocked by a sample clock. Jitter on the sample clock causes the sampling instants to vary from the ideal sample time. This transfers the jitter from the sample clock to the input signal.
In this article, I present a Matlab...
ADC Clock Jitter Model, Part 2 – Random Jitter
In Part 1, I presented a Matlab function to model an ADC with jitter on the sample clock, and applied it to examples with deterministic jitter. Now we’ll investigate an ADC with random clock jitter, by using a filtered or unfiltered Gaussian sequence as the jitter source. What we are calling jitter can also be called time jitter, phase jitter, or phase noise. It’s all the same phenomenon. Typically, we call it jitter when we have a time-domain representation,...
Discrete-Time PLLs, Part 1: Basics
Design Files: Part1.slx
Hi everyone,
In this series of tutorials on discrete-time PLLs we will be focusing on Phase-Locked Loops that can be implemented in discrete-time signal proessors such as FPGAs, DSPs and of course, MATLAB.
In the first part of the series, we will be reviewing the basics of continuous-time baseband PLLs and we will see some useful mathematics that will give us insight into the inners working of PLLs. In the second part, we will focus on...
Design IIR Band-Reject Filters
In this post, I show how to design IIR Butterworth band-reject filters, and provide two Matlab functions for band-reject filter synthesis. Earlier posts covered IIR Butterworth lowpass [1] and bandpass [2] filters. Here, the function br_synth1.m designs band-reject filters based on null frequency and upper -3 dB frequency, while br_synth2.m designs them based on lower and upper -3 dB frequencies. I’ll discuss the differences between the two approaches later in this...
Canonic Signed Digit (CSD) Representation of Integers
In my last post I presented Matlab code to synthesize multiplierless FIR filters using Canonic Signed Digit (CSD) coefficients. I included a function dec2csd1.m (repeated here in Appendix A) to convert decimal integers to binary CSD values. Here I want to use that function to illustrate a few properties of CSD numbers.
In a binary signed-digit number system, we allow each binary digit to have one of the three values {0, 1, -1}. Thus, for example, the binary value 1 1...
A Recipe for a Common Logarithm Table
IntroductionThis 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...
Interpolation Basics
This article covers interpolation basics, and provides a numerical example of interpolation of a time signal. Figure 1 illustrates what we mean by interpolation. The top plot shows a continuous time signal, and the middle plot shows a sampled version with sample time Ts. The goal of interpolation is to increase the sample rate such that the new (interpolated) sample values are close to the values of the continuous signal at the sample times [1]. For example, if...
Digital PLL’s, Part 3 – Phase Lock an NCO to an External Clock
Sometimes you may need to phase-lock a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) to an external clock that is not related to the system clocks of your ASIC or FPGA. This situation is shown in Figure 1. Assuming your system has an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) available, you can sync to the external clock using the scheme shown in Figure 2. This time-domain PLL model is similar to the one presented in Part 1 of this series on digital PLL’s [1]. In that PLL, we...
DFT Graphical Interpretation: Centroids of Weighted Roots of Unity
IntroductionThis is an article to hopefully give a better understanding to the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by framing it in a graphical interpretation. The bin calculation formula is shown to be the equivalent of finding the center of mass, or centroid, of a set of points. Various examples are graphed to illustrate the well known properties of DFT bin values. This treatment will only consider real valued signals. Complex valued signals can be analyzed in a similar manner with...
Demonstrating the Periodic Spectrum of a Sampled Signal Using the DFT
One of the basic DSP principles states that a sampled time signal has a periodic spectrum with period equal to the sample rate. The derivation of can be found in textbooks [1,2]. You can also demonstrate this principle numerically using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT).
The DFT of the sampled signal x(n) is defined as:
$$X(k)=\sum_{n=0}^{N-1}x(n)e^{-j2\pi kn/N} \qquad (1)$$
Where
X(k) = discrete frequency spectrum of time sequence x(n)
Plotting Discrete-Time Signals
A discrete-time sinusoid can have frequency up to just shy of half the sample frequency. But if you try to plot the sinusoid, the result is not always recognizable. For example, if you plot a 9 Hz sinusoid sampled at 100 Hz, you get the result shown in the top of Figure 1, which looks like a sine. But if you plot a 35 Hz sinusoid sampled at 100 Hz, you get the bottom graph, which does not look like a sine when you connect the dots. We typically want the plot of a...
Exact Frequency Formula for a Pure Real Tone in a DFT
IntroductionThis is an article to hopefully give a better understanding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) by deriving an exact formula for the frequency of a real tone in a DFT. According to current teaching, this is not possible, so this article should be considered a major theoretical advance in the discipline. The formula is presented in a few different formats. Some sample calculations are provided to give a numerical demonstration of the formula in use. This article is...
ADC Clock Jitter Model, Part 2 – Random Jitter
In Part 1, I presented a Matlab function to model an ADC with jitter on the sample clock, and applied it to examples with deterministic jitter. Now we’ll investigate an ADC with random clock jitter, by using a filtered or unfiltered Gaussian sequence as the jitter source. What we are calling jitter can also be called time jitter, phase jitter, or phase noise. It’s all the same phenomenon. Typically, we call it jitter when we have a time-domain representation,...
