Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) Archives

Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) of a DFT-even sequence

July 11, 2022 DSP

The Beauty of Symmetry in Fourier Transform

In 1978, Fred Harris was a relatively unknown faculty member at the San Diego State University when he published his landmark paper titled On the use of windows for harmonic analysis with the discrete Fourier transform. That paper made him a superstar in DSP community. It presented a brief overview of signal windows and their impact on the detection of harmonic signals in the presence of broad-band noise and nearby harmonic interference. More importantly, he pointed out several common errors in the application of windows when used in the context of Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). Today I am going to

May 2, 2021 DSP

Convolution and Fourier Transform

One question I am frequently asked is regarding the definition of Fourier Transform. A continuous-time Fourier Transform for time domain signal $x(t)$ is defined as \[ X(\Omega) = \int _{-\infty} ^{\infty} x(t) e^{-j\Omega t} dt \] where $\Omega$ is the continuous frequency. A corresponding definition for discrete-time Fourier Transform for a discrete-time signal $x[n]$ is given by \[ X(e^{j\omega}) = \sum _{n=-\infty} ^{\infty} x[n] e^{-j\omega n} \] where $\omega$ is the discrete frequency related to continuous frequency $\Omega$ through the relation $\omega = \Omega T_S$ if the sample time is denoted by $T_S$. Focusing on the discrete-time Fourier Transform for

July 12, 2021 DSP

Generating Signals and Viewing the Spectrum

One of the most common questions DSP beginners have is how to generate the signals (particularly, sinusoids) and view their spectrum. They have a rough idea what time domain and frequency domain are about but struggle to construct the first few lines of code that open the gates towards a deeper understanding of signals. For this reason, I produce below an Octave (or Matlab) code that you can simply copy and paste to view and modify the results. Keep in mind that the code has been written for an explanation purpose, not conciseness or optimization. As you progress towards developing

May 28, 2025 DSP

Two Birds with One Tone: I/Q Signals and Fourier Transform – Part 2

In Part 1 of I/Q signals series, we discussed in detail the orthogonality in phase and saw how this leads us to employing two carriers in wireless transmission systems. In Part 2, we talk about orthogonality in frequency and see how this leads us to the concept of Fourier Transform. A Basic Building Block We use the power of logic to uncover the rules according to which the world works. But our minds struggle to retain excessive amounts of information required to grasp the complex reality. Therefore, we like to reduce everything around us as a combination of some fundamental

A bank of N filters each centered at discrete frequency k/N

March 19, 2020 DSP

Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) as a Filter Bank

We have discussed before what a Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) is and how to find the DFT of some commonly used signals. Here, we will see how a DFT acts as a (crude) bank of filters that can pass the signal contents around a desired frequency while blocking the rest. Let us start with the definition of the DFT. \begin{equation*} \begin{aligned} S_I[k]\: &= \sum \limits _{n=0} ^{N-1}\left[ s_I[n] \cos 2\pi\frac{k}{N}n + s_Q[n] \sin 2\pi\frac{k}{N}n\right] \\ S_Q[k] &= \sum \limits _{n=0} ^{N-1}\left[ s_Q[n] \cos 2\pi\frac{ k}{N}n – s_I[n] \sin 2\pi\frac{k}{N}n\right] \end{aligned} \end{equation*} for each $k$. In complex notation, this DFT is