Filtering, Communication and Fourier Transforms

Samantha R. Summerson 5 October, 2009

Filtering Signals
s(t) y(t),
k= ck H k T

If a periodic signal s(t) is the input to a LTI system and the output is y(t), we have the following relation:
j2kt T k= ck e j2kt T

Consider a square wave as the input. In a previous lecture, we computed the Fourier coecients for the square wave as 2 k odd jk ck = . 0 k even If the square wave is put into a LPF such as H(f ) = the output is y(t) =
k=

1 , j2f RC + 1

j2kt 1 2 e T . k j2k j2 T RC + 1

This lter eectively smooths out the edges, i.e. the discontinuities. If the square wave was put into a HPF, such as j2f RC , H(f ) = j2f RC + 1 we can similarly write the output. Because the two lters both come from a RLC circuit with a resistor and capacitor in parallel with an input voltage source and each lter measures the output voltage across a dierent element (LPF = voltage across capacitor, HPF = voltage across resistor), the output in the second case should look like the input signal minus the LPF output signal.

Communication
s(t) =
k

Representing a periodic signal with the Fourier series, ck e

k2kt T

we can play around with the Fourier coecients. By turning ck s on and o, we can communicate dierent signals. Each coecient represents a bit, with ck o equivalent to the bit 0 and ck on equivalent to the bit 1. If we have ve coecients, which represent ve bits of information, we can communicate 25 dierent messages. 1

Fourier Transforms

Consider a periodic signal with period T . As the period grows to innity, the signal is no longer periodic. We want to examine what happens the Fourier series representation of a signal in such a case. ck (T ) ST (f ) = 1 T
T 2 T 2

sT (t)e

j2kt T

dt,

T 2

= T ck (T ), =
T 2

sT (t)ej2f t dt (letting f = 1 ST (f ) ej2f t . T

k ), T

sT (t) Taking the limit as T , we nd

=
k

lim sT (t) = s(t) =

ST (f )ej2f t df.

We can now drop the T subscript for ST and dene the Fourier transform of a signal:

S(f ) =

s(t)ej2f t dt.

This is the spectra of a non-periodic signal s(t). The inverse Fourier transform is dened as

s(t) =

S(f )ej2f t df.

Example 1. Find the spectrum of the pulse signal. p (t)

P (f )

p (t)ej2f t dt, ej2f t ,

0

= = = = = =

1 j2f t e , j2f 0 1 ej2f 1 , j2f 1 jf jf e e ejf , j2f 1 jf e sin(f ), f ejf sinc(f ). 2

We can plot the magnitude of the spectrum to examine the frequency content of the signal. |P (f )|

This is a low-frequency signal, as most of its power is located at lower frequencies. The bandwidth of the 1 signal is . If = 1s, then the bandwidth is 1M Hz.