DSP Archives | Page 13 of 15

July 24, 2016 DSP

A Digital Signal

We have talked about obtaining a discrete-time signal through sampling the time-axis and obtaining a discrete frequency set through sampling the frequency axis. The same concept can be applied to the amplitude-axis, where the signal amplitude can be sampled to take only a finite set of discrete values. This discrete-time discrete-valued signal is called a digital signal, as opposed to an analog signal that is continuous in time and continuous in amplitude. The above figure shows how a digital signal having amplitudes over a fixed set of values can be obtained through slicing the underlying continuous amplitudes. For example, an

July 21, 2016 DSP

Some DFT Properties

The purpose of this article is to summarize some useful DFT properties in a table. My favorite property is the beautiful symmetry depicted by continuous and discrete Fourier transforms. However, if you feel that this particular content is not as descriptive as the other posts on this website are, you are right. As opposed to the rest of the content on the website, we do not intend to derive all the properties here. Instead, based on what we have learned, some important properties of the DFT are summarized in the table below with an expectation that the reader can derive

July 20, 2016 DSP

Time-Invariant Systems

A system is time-invariant if shifting the input sequence on time axis leads to an equivalent shift of the output sequence along the time axis, with no other changes.

The blue line is the signal template and while red is the matched filter. Notice the same magnitude on each spectral line but exactly opposite phase

July 18, 2016 DSP / Wireless/SDR

Demodulation – From Signals Back to Numbers

Remember that in the article on correlation, we discussed that correlation of a signal with proper normalization is maximum with itself and lesser for all other signals. Since the number of possible signals is limited in a digital communication system, we can use the correlation between incoming signal $r(nT_S)$ and possible choices $s_0(nT_S)$ and $s_1(nT_S)$ in a digital receiver. Consequently, a decision can be made in favor of the one with higher correlation. It turns out that the theory of maximum likelihood detection formalizes this conclusion that it is the optimum receiver in terms of minimizing the probability of error.

July 17, 2016 DSP

Sampling a Continuous-Time Signal

Most signals of our interest — wireless communication waveforms — are continuous-time as they have to travel through a real wireless channel. To process such a signal using digital signal processing techniques, the signal must be converted into a sequence of numbers. This can be done through the process of periodic sampling. From Continuous to Discrete Time Consider a band-limited continuous-time signal $s(t)$ and its frequency domain representation $S(F)$ with bandwidth $B$, shown in the above figure. A discrete-time signal $s[n]$ can be obtained by taking samples of $s(t)$ at equal intervals of $T_S$ seconds. This process is shown in