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...
Feedback Controllers - Making Hardware with Firmware. Part 4. Engineering of Evaluation Hardware
Following on from the previous abstract descriptions of an arbitrary circuit emulation application for low-latency feedback controllers, we now come to some aspects in the hardware engineering of an evaluation design from concept to first power-up. In due course a complete specification along with application examples will be maintained on the project website.
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2:...
Online DSP Classes: Why Such a High Dropout Rate?
Last year the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine published a lengthy article describing three university-sponsored online digital signal processing (DSP) courses [1]. The article detailed all the effort the professors expended in creating those courses and the courses' perceived values to students.
However, one fact that struck me as important, but not thoroughly addressed in the article, was the shocking dropout rate of those online courses. For two of the courses the article's...
Two Bin Exact Frequency Formulas 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 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...
Errata for the book: 'Understanding Digital Signal Processing'
Errata 3rd Ed. International Version.pdfErrata 3rd Ed. International Version.pdfThis blog post provides, in one place, the errata for each of the many different Editions/Printings of my book Understanding Digital Signal Processing.
If you would like the errata for your copy of the book, merely scroll down and click on the appropriate red line below. For the American versions of the various Editions of the book you'll need to know the "Printing Number" of your copy of the...
Feedback Controllers - Making Hardware with Firmware. Part 3. Sampled Data Aspects
Some Design and Simulation Considerations for Sampled-Data ControllersThis article will continue to look at some aspects of the controllers and electronics needed to create emulated physical circuits with real-world connectivity and will look at the issues that arise in sampled-data controllers compared to continuous-domain controllers. As such, is not intended as an introduction to sampled-data systems.
- Part 1: Introduction
Finally got a drone!
As a reader of my blog, you already know that I have been making videos lately and thoroughly enjoying the process. When I was in Germany early this summer (and went 280 km/h in a porsche!) to produce SEGGER's 25th anniversary video, the company bought a drone so we could get an aerial shot of the party (at about the 1:35 mark in this video). Since then, I have been obsessing on buying a drone for myself and finally made the move a few weeks ago - I acquired a used DJI...
Feedback Controllers - Making Hardware with Firmware. Part 2. Ideal Model Examples
Developing and Validating Simulation ModelsThis article will describe models for simulating the systems and controllers for the hardware emulation application described in Part 1 of the series.
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Ideal Model Examples
- Part 3: Sampled Data Aspects
- Part 4: Engineering of Evaluation Hardware
- Part 5:
Feedback Controllers - Making Hardware with Firmware. Part I. Introduction
Introduction to the topicThis is the 1st in a series of articles looking at how we can use DSP and Feedback Control Sciences along with some mixed-signal electronics and number-crunching capability (e.g. FPGA), to create arbitrary (within reason) Electrical/Electronic Circuits with real-world connectivity. Of equal importance will be the evaluation of the functionality and performance of a practical design made from modestly-priced state of the art devices.
- Part 1:
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...
Polyphase Filters and Filterbanks
ALONG CAME POLY
Polyphase filtering is a computationally efficient structure for applying resampling and filtering to a signal. Most digital filters can be applied in a polyphase format, and it is also possible to create efficient resampling filterbanks using the same theories.
This post will walk through a reference implementation of both the downsampling polyphase filter and a downsampling polyphase filterbank using scipy, numpy, matplotlib, and python. It should also highlight some of...
Understanding and Implementing the Sliding DFT
Introduction
In many applications the detection or processing of signals in the frequency domain offers an advantage over performing the same task in the time-domain. Sometimes the advantage is just a simpler or more conceptually straightforward algorithm, and often the largest barrier to working in the frequency domain is the complexity or latency involved in the Fast Fourier Transform computation. If the frequency-domain data must be updated frequently in a...
Generating pink noise
In one of his most famous columns for Scientific American, Martin Gardner wrote about pink noise and its relation to fractal music. The article was based on a 1978 paper by Voss and Clarke, which presents, among other things, a simple algorithm for generating pink noise, also known as 1/f noise.
The fundamental idea of the algorithm is to add up several sequences of uniform random numbers that get updated at different rates. The first source gets updated at...
Simplest Calculation of Half-band Filter Coefficients
Half-band filters are lowpass FIR filters with cut-off frequency of one-quarter of sampling frequency fs and odd symmetry about fs/4 [1]*. And it so happens that almost half of the coefficients are zero. The passband and stopband bandwiths are equal, making these filters useful for decimation-by-2 and interpolation-by-2. Since the zero coefficients make them computationally efficient, these filters are ubiquitous in DSP systems.
Here we will compute half-band...
A Beginner's Guide to OFDM
In the recent past, high data rate wireless communications is often considered synonymous to an Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) system. OFDM is a special case of multi-carrier communication as opposed to a conventional single-carrier system.
The concepts on which OFDM is based are so simple that almost everyone in the wireless community is a technical expert in this subject. However, I have always felt an absence of a really simple guide on how OFDM works which can...
Optimizing the Half-band Filters in Multistage Decimation and Interpolation
This blog discusses a not so well-known rule regarding the filtering in multistage decimation and interpolation by an integer power of two. I'm referring to sample rate change systems using half-band lowpass filters (LPFs) as shown in Figure 1. Here's the story.
Figure 1: Multistage decimation and interpolation using half-band filters.
Multistage Decimation – A Very Brief ReviewFigure 2(a) depicts the process of decimation by an integer factor D. That...
Music/Audio Signal Processing
Greetings,
This is my blog from the point of view of a music/audio DSP research engineer / educator. It is informal and largely nontechnical because nearly everything I have to say about signal processing is (or will be) somewhere in my four-book series: Mathematics of DFT with Audio Applications, Introduction to Digital Filters, Physical Audio Signal Processing and
Polyphase filter / Farrows interpolation
Hello,
this article is meant to give a quick overview over polyphase filtering and Farrows interpolation.
A good reference with more depth is for example Fred Harris' paper: http://www.signumconcepts.com/IP_center/paper018.pdf
The task is as follows: Interpolate a band-limited discrete-time signal at a variable offset between samples.In other words:Delay the signal by a given amount with sub-sample accuracy.Both mean the same.
The picture below shows samples (black) representing...
An s-Plane to z-Plane Mapping Example
While surfing around the Internet recently I encountered the 's-plane to z-plane mapping' diagram shown in Figure 1. At first I thought the diagram was neat because it's a good example of the old English idiom: "A picture is worth a thousand words." However, as I continued to look at Figure 1 I began to detect what I believe are errors in the diagram.
Reader, please take a few moments to see if you detect any errors in Figure 1.
...Design IIR Filters Using Cascaded Biquads
This article shows how to implement a Butterworth IIR lowpass filter as a cascade of second-order IIR filters, or biquads. We’ll derive how to calculate the coefficients of the biquads and do some examples using a Matlab function biquad_synth provided in the Appendix. Although we’ll be designing Butterworth filters, the approach applies to any all-pole lowpass filter (Chebyshev, Bessel, etc). As we’ll see, the cascaded-biquad design is less sensitive to coefficient...Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) - A Tutorial
Minimum Shift Keying (MSK) is one of the most spectrally efficient modulation schemes available. Due to its constant envelope, it is resilient to non-linear distortion and was therefore chosen as the modulation technique for the GSM cell phone standard.
MSK is a special case of Continuous-Phase Frequency Shift Keying (CPFSK) which is a special case of a general class of modulation schemes known as Continuous-Phase Modulation (CPM). It is worth noting that CPM (and hence CPFSK) is a...
Oscilloscope Dreams
My coworkers and I recently needed a new oscilloscope. I thought I would share some of the features I look for when purchasing one.
When I was in college in the early 1990's, our oscilloscopes looked like this:
Now the cathode ray tubes have almost all been replaced by digital storage scopes with color LCD screens, and they look like these:
Oscilloscopes are basically just fancy expensive boxes for graphing voltage vs. time. They span a wide range of features and prices:...
Frequency-Domain Periodicity and the Discrete Fourier Transform
Introduction
Some of the better understood aspects of time-sampled systems are the limitations and requirements imposed by the Nyquist sampling theorem [1]. Somewhat less understood is the periodic nature of the spectra of sampled signals. This article provides some insights into sampling that not only explain the periodic nature of the sampled spectrum, but aliasing, bandlimited sampling, and the so-called "super-Nyquist" or IF sampling. The approaches taken here include both mathematical...
Computing the Group Delay of a Filter
I just learned a new method (new to me at least) for computing the group delay of digital filters. In the event this process turns out to be interesting to my readers, this blog describes the method. Let's start with a bit of algebra so that you'll know I'm not making all of this up.
Assume we have the N-sample h(n) impulse response of a digital filter, with n being our time-domain index, and that we represent the filter's discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT), H(ω), in polar form...
TCP/IP interface (Matlab/Octave)
Communicate with measurement instruments via Ethernet (no-toolbox-Matlab or Octave)
PurposeMeasurement automation is digital signal processing in a wider sense: Getting a digital signal from an analog world usually involves some measurement instruments, for example a spectrum analyzer. Modern instruments, and also many off-the-shelf prototyping boards such as FPGA cards [1] or microcontrollers [2] are able to communicate via Ethernet. Here, I provide some basic mex-functions (compiled C...
Noise shaping
Keywords: Quantization noise; noise shaping
A brief introduction to noise shaping, with firm resolve not to miss the forest for the trees. We may still stumble over some assorted roots. Matlab example code is included.
QuantizationFig. 1 shows a digital signal that is reduced to a lower bit width, for example a 16 bit signal being sent to a 12 bit digital-to-analog converter. Rounding to the nearest output value is obviously the best that can be done to minimize the error of each...
How Discrete Signal Interpolation Improves D/A Conversion
This blog post is also available in pdf format. Download here.Earlier this year, for the Linear Audio magazine, published in the Netherlands whose subscribers are technically-skilled hi-fi audio enthusiasts, I wrote an article on the fundamentals of interpolation as it's used to improve the performance of analog-to-digital conversion. Perhaps that article will be of some value to the subscribers of dsprelated.com. Here's what I wrote:
We encounter the process of digital-to-analog...
Signal Processing Contest in Python (PREVIEW): The Worst Encoder in the World
When I posted an article on estimating velocity from a position encoder, I got a number of responses. A few of them were of the form "Well, it's an interesting article, but at slow speeds why can't you just take the time between the encoder edges, and then...." My point was that there are lots of people out there which take this approach, and don't take into account that the time between encoder edges varies due to manufacturing errors in the encoder. For some reason this is a hard concept...
Optimizing the Half-band Filters in Multistage Decimation and Interpolation
This blog discusses a not so well-known rule regarding the filtering in multistage decimation and interpolation by an integer power of two. I'm referring to sample rate change systems using half-band lowpass filters (LPFs) as shown in Figure 1. Here's the story.
Figure 1: Multistage decimation and interpolation using half-band filters.
Multistage Decimation – A Very Brief ReviewFigure 2(a) depicts the process of decimation by an integer factor D. That...
Curse you, iPython Notebook!
First, I think ipython is great. I use it daily and always have an ipython terminal open. But just recently, I was showing off the ipython 0.12 notebook and in the process created a lengthy example while demonstrating the cool features of the ipython notebook. The example included LaTeX equations, plots, etc. Since the notebook session was on something of relevance I decided to clean up the session and use it for the beginning of a report.
50,000th Member Announced!
In my last post, I wrote that DSPRelated.com was about to reach the 50,000 members mark. Well, I am very happy to announce that it happened during the holidays, and the lucky person is Charlie Tsai from Taiwan. Charlie is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the National Central University in Taiwan where he teaches the "Biomedical Signal Processing" class. He is also the advisor of the
Almost 50,000 Members!
I am very happy to announce that DSPRelated.com will reach the 50,000 registered members mark before the end of 2009. To celebrate this milestone, I will buy a BMW 5 to the 50,000th person to register (please make sure to confirm you email address to activate your registration). Please read the fine prints after the picture.
I am just having fun here and it's not even April's fool day. The 50,000th member won't get a BMW (I wish I could offer it!),...
DSPRelated faster than ever!
if you are visiting DSPRelated.com on a regular basis, you should observe that the site loads significantly faster in your browser than it used to, especially if you are in Europe or in Asia. The main reason for this is that I am now using Amazon's CloudFront service for the delivery of most static content on DSPRelated.com (images, javascripts, css). The cloudFront service automatically detects the location of a visitor and will deliver the static content from the server...
New Papers / Theses Section
The new 'Papers & Theses' section is now online: http://www.dsprelated.com/documents.phpThe idea is to list and organize in one place as many DSP related dissertations (PhD & Masters) and papers/articles as possible.If you are the author of a thesis or paper and would like to have it listed on DSPRelated.com, please follow these steps:- Make sure that you are allowed to share the document online (copyright).- If you don't already have one, make a 'pdf' copy of your document. ...
New Blog Section!
By now, chances are you have noticed the new blogs section (you are actually in it right now!).
Following an email I sent to the members of the site, a few weeks ago, asking for dsp engineers willing to blog here, I received around 50 propositions. I have selected an initial set of 10 bloggers (that I will soon introduce into a seperate post) and I am currently in the process of creating their accounts. Markus and Parth have already...
New Discussion Group: DSP & FPGA
I have just created a new discussion group for engineers implementing DSP functions on FPGAs. The creation of this group has been on my todo list for a long time. If you want to join the group, send a blank email to: fpgadsp-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
As usual, it should take a few weeks before there are enough members for interesting discussions to get started.
