Chapter 1 Introduction To Signals - QS - Archive
Chapter 1 Introduction To Signals - QS - Archive
Chapter 1 --
Introduction to Signals
P.1
ELEC1010 Electronic & Information Technology
Lecture 2
P.2
What Is Signal?
• Signal: A pattern or variation that contains information.
A signal can be what we see, hear, touch, smell, taste and visualize.
Examples: Audio, image and video signals.
P.3
Signal is Everywhere
A signal can be contained in what we do not sense directly
Radio, cellular phone, and wireless LAN signal
Car Camera
Signals in science (Physics)
Gamma ray from the universe High-energy particle tracks
P.4
Signal Conveys Information
X-ray
Hang Seng Index Electrocardiogram
Movie
50 msec
P.6
Representation of Signal
• Signal can be variations of some physical quantity over
space.
P.7
Representation of Signal
• Signal can be variations of some physical quantity over
space.
_______________________
P.8
Representation of Signal
• Signal can also be variations over both space and time.
Example: video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCY7E0oHW6Y
P.10
Analog Signals
• Analog signals are signals that vary continuously over time
with arbitrary continuous values.
Analog Signal –
Acoustic Pressure; Electrical Current
time
P.11
Digital Signals
• Digital signals are signals that are defined only at discrete
time instances and can take on a finite set of values.
Digital Signal –
Student attendance at lecture
Hang Seng Index at end of day
MP3 Music file
P.12
Conversion Between Analog and Digital Signals
P.13
Signals as Input and Output of Systems
• In scientific and engineering studies, everything can be modeled
as systems with signals as input and signals as output
Input Output
Signals System Signals
Examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman P.15
Human being as systems
• System 2: Slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious.
Examples of things system 2 can do:
• prepare yourself for the start of a sprint
• direct your attention towards the clowns at the circus
• direct your attention towards someone at a loud party
• look for the woman with the grey hair
• try to recognize a sound
• sustain a faster-than-normal walking rate
• determine the appropriateness of a particular behavior in a social
setting
• count the number of A's in a certain text
• give someone your telephone number
• park into a tight parking space
• determine the price/quality ratio of two washing machines Nobel Memorial Prize in
• determine the validity of a complex logical reasoning Economic Sciences (2002)
• solve 17 × 24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kahneman P.16
Signals Bring Interactions Among Systems
• Output signals from one system is often the input to another
system.
• Signals transfer information from one system to another system
and bring interactions among systems.
Glucose
Solar Radiation System 2:
System 1:
Photosynthesis
The Sun
in Plants
Electricity
System 3:
Solar Panel
Electrical Audible
Radio Signal
System 4: System 5: Signal System 6:
Wave
Radio Receiver Signal Processor
Transmitter Antenna & Speaker
P.17
Cell Phone – A Complex System in your Hand
• A system can be complex!
• E.g. The cell phone is a system that contains several sub-
systems (i.e. systems within a system), and many sub-sub-
systems within the sub-systems. The cell phone represents one
of the most complex systems ever invented (yet so compact,
multi-functional and popular!).
Small Power
Signal RF RF
Power
Management
Analog
Baseband
Digital Baseband
(DSP + MCU)
P.18
Discussion
P.19
Summary – Lecture 2
• We discussed analog and digital signals and systems.
Lecture 3
P.21
What is Sound Signal?
• What is sound? What is in the sound signal that
determines what we hear?
• Sound is an audio signal that we hear through variations in
the air pressure that reaches our ears.
• Atmospheric pressure is ~100,000 Pa (Pascal: measure of
pressure, 1 Newton per square meter). Variation of as little as 1 Pa
would be a deafening sound to our ear!
• Let’s play a sound signal and plot this signal as a function
of time:
P.22
Manipulating Sound Signals
Let’s slow down and speed up how fast we play this sound
signal:
P.23
Zooming in the plot of the Sound Signal
• When we zoom into the plot of the original sound signal to the
~20 ms time scale, we find different repetitive patterns at
different parts of the music:
Audio Signal over
9 seconds
10 ms 20 ms 10 ms 20 ms
time A guitar
20 ms
P.25
Perception of Pitch of a Sound Signal
• It is the frequency in the repetitive pattern in each sound
bite that leads to our perception of a pitch. The faster the
pattern repeats, the higher the pitch.
• Speeding up or slowing down the music leads to a different
perception of the “pitch” of the sound that we hear.
Speeded Up by 1.5x
A 20-millisecond
piece of the signal
10 ms 20 ms
Slowed down by 2x
10 ms 20 ms
10 ms 20 ms
P.26
Discussion
P.27
Periodic Signal
• A signal that oscillates with a repetitive pattern is called a
periodic signal.
time
f = 1/T
P.29
A Simple Periodic Signal - Sinusoidal Signal
• We will now illustrate the perception of pitch by the
simplest periodic signal - the sinusoidal signal. (e.g. sound
of a tuning fork, or a person whistling) . A sinusoidal signal
is also called a sine wave
amplitude
Time
A
2
1. amplitude A = 3
1
0
t 2. period T = 4 ms
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-1
3. frequency f = 250 Hz
-2
-3
-4
P.31
Simple example on Sinusoidal Signal
Suppose a sinusoidal signal has
then,
P.33
Sine Waves of Different Frequencies Give us Different Pitches
Every music note we know has a specific pitch or fundamental frequency:
A 1
0.5 261.63 Hz Do
0
C4
-0.5
(middle C) t/sec
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-3
x 10
A1
0.5
293.66 Hz Re
0
-0.5
D4
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
t/sec
-3
x 10
A1
0.5
0
329.63 Hz Me
-0.5 E4
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
x 10
-3 t/sec
P.34
Sine Waves of Different Frequencies Give us Different Pitches
A1
0.5
349.23 Hz Fa
0
F4
-0.5
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
t/sec
-3
x 10
A1
0.5
392.00 Hz So
0
G4
-0.5
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
t/sec
-3
x 10
A1
0.5
440.00 Hz la
0
-0.5
A4
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
t/sec
-3
x 10 P.35
Combining Different Notes in Time Gives Us a Song!
A 1
0.5
494.00 Hz t
0
B4
-0.5
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-3
t/sec x 10
0.5
-0.5
-1
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Me Me Far So So Far Me Re Do Do Re Me Me Re Re
P.36
Example: Fundamental Frequencies in a piano
• Different keys on the piano keyboard produce sounds at specific
pitches, called notes, labeled A to G (for the simple scale).
middle C
P.37
Quality of a Musical Tone
P.38
Sound: Pitch, Loudness and Timbre
• Our ears distinguish sounds primarily by distinguishing
three attributes of the sound signal: pitch, loudness, and
timbre.
• The fundamental frequency of a sound signal leads to
our perception of the pitch. The higher the fundamental
frequency, the higher the pitch.
0 4 8 12
• Note the different
repeating structures
period 4 ms
0 4 8 12
P.40
So pure sinusoidal signals only have simple periodic
variations. But periodic signals generated by piano and
voices are generally more complex!
1.5
T T
1
0.5
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-0.5
-1
-1.5
P.43
ELEC1010 Electronic & Information Technology
Lecture 4
P.44
Fundamental Frequency and Harmonics
• We introduced the fact that our ear basically responses to the
sine waves in sound signals.
Sinusoidal signal with frequency “3f” is the “3rd harmonic,” and so forth.
P.45
Examples of Harmonics
1.5 1.5 3T3= 4 ms
T = 4 ms
1 1
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 2 4 6 8
-0.5 -0.5
-1 -1
-1.5 -1.5
0.5 0.5
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 2 4 6 8
-0.5 -0.5
-1 -1
-1.5 -1.5
P.46
Example: Making complex periodic signals
• Adding harmonics does not change the fundamental
frequency (period) of a signal, i.e. the signal still repeats
with period T
• In the example below, we add together a sine wave at
250 Hz with its 2nd harmonic (sine wave at 500 Hz) of
equal amplitude:
Example:
T = 4 ms 2T2 = 4 ms
0.5
• At Point 1,
0
Red Signal =1
-0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Green Signal = 0
-1
Resultant Signal = 1 + 0 = 1
-1.5
2 • At Point 2,
1.5 Red Signal = 0.7
1 Green Signal = -1
0.5 Resultant Signal = 0.7 + (-1) = -0.3
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
P.48
Example - Adding different amounts of harmonics
• We can add different amounts of harmonics. The fundamental
frequency remains the same.
1
1st harmonic +
0.8
0.6
2nd harmonic
1st harmonic 0.4
1.5
0.2
(Fundamental 0
1
-0.2
frequency) -0.4
0.5
-0.6 + 0
-0.8
-1 -0.5
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
-1
-1.5
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
0.5
0.4
1st harmonic +
0.3
0.2
2nd harmonic+
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
3rd harmonic
-0.5
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
1.5
0.5
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
+ 0
3rd harmonic
0.05
-0.05
-0.1 -0.5
-0.15
-0.2
-0.25
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
-1
-1.5
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
P.49
Harmonics and “Timbre/Quality” of Sound
• It is the sum of the harmonics that produces the complex patterns that
we observe in sound signals.
• While the pitch of the sound we hear is determined by the fundamental
frequency of the repetitive pattern, the “quality” of the sound is
determined by the relative amounts (amplitudes) of the harmonics!
• A tone with only the 1st harmonic (i.e. the fundamental) is a “pure”
tone! Its signal is a pure sine wave (e.g. a tuning fork, a nice whistle)
1.5
0.5
0
0 2 4 6 8
-0.5
-1
-1.5
P.51
Frequency Domain Representation of Signals
• Since it is the sine waves that matter to our ear, it is helpful to have a
simple way to describe what sine waves there are in the signal.
• So, instead of drawing a sine wave in the time domain, we can represent
the fact that we have a sine wave at 261.63 Hz with amplitude of 1 by
drawing an arrow with amplitude 1 at the corresponding location on a
frequency axis.
Time Domain Representation: Waveform
1
0.5
A 0
-0.5
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
-3
8
t/sec
Axis: time x 10
-0.5
-1
t/sec
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-3
x 10
amplitude
Spectrum
1 Re
293.66 Hz
P.53
Waveform vs. Frequency Spectrum……
0.5
-0.5
-1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-3
x 10
t/sec
amplitude Spectrum
1 Me
329.63 Hz
P.54
And if we have a fundamental frequency plus its harmonics….
0.8
1
Signal x1(t) Spectrum X1(f)
0.6
0.4
1st + 2nd harmonics
1st harmonic 0.2
(Fundamental -0.2
0 1.5
“1st”
1
frequency) -0.4
“2nd”
-0.6
-0.8
0.5 1
-1
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01 + 0
-0.5
-1
0.5
-1.5
0.4 0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
Signal x2(t) Spectrum X2(f)
1st +2nd+3rd harmonics
-0.4
-0.5
“1st”
0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
1.5
“2nd”“3rd”
1
0.5
1
+ 0
-0.5
0. 25
0. 2
0. 15
0. 1
0. 05
-1
0
3rd harmonic
-0. 05
-0. 1
-0. 15
-0. 2
-0. 25
-1.5
0 0. 001 0. 002 0. 003 0. 004 0. 005 0. 006 0. 007 0. 008 0. 009 0. 01 0 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009 0.01
“guitar”
2.5 3.83 ms
2
1.5
“1st” “2nd” “3rd”
1
0.5
1
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
-0.5
-1
-1.5
-2
261 522 783 Hz
-2.5
time (ms)
P.56
Discussion
P.57
Spectrum as Variable over Time
• What do we mean by “over the time interval of concern?”
• Consider the fact that for a piece of musical instrument, not the
same note is played all the time, and even as a specific note is
played, the amplitudes of different harmonics actually varies as a
function of time. We can plot how the harmonics change with time
in what is called a spectrogram, as illustrated below:
Trumpet Clarinet
time
P.58
Spectrum as Variable over Time
2nd harmonic
is the strongest
time
P.59
Spectrum and Spectrogram
• It is the details in how the harmonics change over time that give us
the full perception of how a trumpet is different from a clarinet.
P.60
Spectrum as a Distribution
• So, if we average the spectrogram of the trumpet and the clarinet
over a very long time such that many different notes are
played, the energy will be spread over a broad range of
frequencies and the spectrum will appear as a continuous
distribution.
• Often, when we talk about the spectrum of a signal, we refer to
this average distribution of signal energy at different frequencies
over a very long time.
P.61
Property of Signals from Their Spectra
• The spectrum allows us to discuss the properties of the
signal in a generic way. For example:
- Human speech spectrum has negligible energy at
frequency > 4,000 Hz.
- Female speech has higher frequencies than male speech.
- Also, there is no energy at very low frequency.
Speech Spectrum
of Males
Speech Spectrum
of Females
Lecture 5
P.64
Representing Signals in the Frequency Domain
P.65
Any Signal as a Sum of Sine Waves
• We can go one step further - we can simply take any chunk
of signal x(t) over an interval T, and we can treat the signal
as if it is periodic with period T, and we can find the set of
harmonic sine waves that will sum up to this signal
X(f) Amplitude of sine
x(t) waves at different
harmonic frequencies
=
f 2f 3f 4f 5f Hz
T time
1/T 2/T 3/T 4/T 5/T
y(t)
Y(f)
=
time T1 f1 2f1 3f1 4f1 5f1 6f1 7f1 8f1 Hz
P.66
Brief introduction to Fourier Transformation
• Fourier showed that any periodic signal s(t) can be written as
a sum of sine waves with various amplitudies, frequencies
and phases
𝑠 𝑡 = 𝑎0 + 𝑎1 sin(2𝜋𝑓 + 𝜙1 ) + 𝑎2 sin(4𝜋𝑓 + 𝜙2 )+ 𝑎3 sin(6𝜋𝑓 + 𝜙3 ) + ⋯
where 𝑎𝑖 's are amplitudes, 𝜙𝑖 's are phase shifts, and 𝑓 is the
fundamental frequency. The higher order frequencies 2f, 3f,
etc. are called harmonics.
1 1 1
𝑠 𝑡 = sin(2𝜋𝑓) + 3 sin(6𝜋𝑓)+ 5 sin(10𝜋𝑓) + 7 sin(14𝜋𝑓) + ⋯
https://mriquestions.com/fourier-transform-ft.html
P.67
Example Fourier transform pairs
https://mriquestions.com/fourier-transform-ft.html
P.68
Why Describing Signals in the Frequency Domain?
• Sine wave is what we see and hear. The tones we hear are
acoustic waves at different frequencies. The colors we see are
light waves at different frequencies (We will briefly discuss
electromagnetic waves at the end of this chapter).
P.69
Spectrum Analyzer of a Real-Time Signal in Action
• In the Internet demo below, we can see a spectrum analyzer
in action analyzing a real time music. The spectrum
analyzer cuts up the music in time into “chunks” and
generates the spectrum of each chunk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:My_Songo_Real_Time_Analysis.ogg
P.71
Spectrogram and Spectrum
• As described earlier, we can regard spectrum as a cross-section of
the spectrogram at a specific time.
• We can also regard the spectrum as the average distribution of
energy among different frequencies over a time interval.
P.72
Spectrogram of different instruments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRAXK4QKJ1Q
P.73
Spectrogram and Spectrum
• For the remainder of this course, we will forget about the
spectrogram and use spectrum to specify the distribution of
signal at different frequencies in a generic sense.
• Not only that the concept of spectrum is applied to acoustic and
electrical signals, it is widely applied to the understanding of
electromagnetic wave. Radiation from the sun, for example, is
made up of electromagnetic waves at various frequencies.
Spectrum of Typical
Human Speech
(In a generic sense,
averaged over a “long”
period of time)
3,000 4,000 Hz
P.74
Discussion
P.75
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
• The universe is filled with electromagnetic waves at a wide
range of frequency spectrum.
P.76
What is Electromagnetic Wave?
• When charged particles (e.g. electrons) accelerate or
decelerate, electromagnetic wave (EM) wave is generated and
radiated at the speed of light, which is the highest speed
anything can travel at:
c 3 x 108 m/s
• Unlike sound, EM wave can travel in vacuum.
• How do we know of the presence of an EM wave? The radiated
EM wave exerts a force on remote charged particles! For the
case of visible light, the EM wave leads to our perception of
color.
• Like the gravity, electromagnetic force is one of the four
fundamental forces in physics. We do not see gravity, but we
see its effect!
P.77
Newton and the Spectrum of Light
• Newton, by the use of a prism, showed that sunlight can be
decomposed into different colors. He went on to show that
different light colors behave as waves of different frequencies /
wavelengths.
• Wavelength and frequency of visible light and all EM waves are
related by:
Wavelength (l) x frequency (f) = speed of light (c 3 x 108 m/s)
• The higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength
P.78
• Nature is filled with EM waves over a broad spectrum.
• Radio wave has a wavelength of 1 km to 1 cm.
• Visible light, has a wavelength of around 0.5 mm.
Solar Radiation
Spectrum
P.79
Radio Spectrum as a Valuable Commodity
• For a little over 100 years, engineers have learned to use radio
wave, with frequency from ~100 KHz to ~30 GHz, to transmit
information. (For about 40 years, we have also used light waves
with frequency ~ 200 THz for communications … and microwave
with frequency ~ 2.4 GHz for cooking.)
• Today, many applications use different parts of the radio
spectrum to transmit information at the same time (radio and TV
broadcast, cell phone, walkie-talkie, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.).
• Use of radio spectrum is regulated by the government
• Some of you may be aware that mobile operators paid a lot of
money to bid for the spectrum for offering 4G mobile services.
• The next slide shows the allocation of radio spectrum by the U.S.
government as an example.
P.80
Spectrum Allocation
in the United States
• The high level allocation is shown
to the right. You may wonder how 1 GHz
different services use different
frequencies to communicate. We
will return to this question in
Chapter 5.
• The detailed table is extremely
complex, as shown below
1 MHz
100KHz
P.81
Summary – Lecture 5
• Engineers and scientists frequently talk about signals in terms of their
spectrum.
• Visible light, radio, microwave, X-ray, are all part of the electro-magnetic
spectrum
Lecture 6
P.83
Systems and Bandwidth
• As explained earlier, anything that processes signals can be
modeled as a system. Both signals and systems can be
thought of in the frequency domain.
• Physical systems inherently respond only to frequencies within
specific ranges. For example, the range of frequencies that
human can hear is approximately between 20 Hz and
20,000 Hz. This range of frequencies is called the audible
spectrum. Sound above 20,000 Hz is known as ultrasound.
Sound below 20 Hz is known as infrasound.
• The “width” of the audio “band” is approximately 20,000 Hz.
This is the bandwidth of the human ear as a system.
• Likewise, human eyes can see visible light which are
electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 400 and 800
Terahertz. This is the bandwidth of the human visual system.
P.84
Spectral Response of Human Ears
• For the same loudness, our ears hear the frequency range of 1
kHz to 5 kHz better than other frequencies.
• For lower and higher frequencies, e.g., below 60 Hz and above
10 kHz, our ears attenuate the signal and they sound weaker!
• In fact, we can describe the sensitivity of our ear to different
frequencies by a typical “spectral response curve”
Hear poorly …
f (Hz)
1 10 100 1k 10 k 100k
20 Audible “band” 20 k
or “spectrum”
P.85
Signal Processing in the Frequency Domain
• We can conveniently view systems as filters in the frequency
domain with a spectral response curve H, so that if spectrum
of the input is X, the spectrum of the output (Y) would be the
product of H and X. (H, X, Y are all functions of frequency)
X H Y (= HX)
P.86
Example: Mixer and Equalizer
• Mixer and Equalizer are audio equipment we use to
increases or decreases the sound level (amplitude) of
different frequencies in order to make different sound effects
or to compensate for effect of your speaker, transmission
wire, etc.
1 1
Equalize
3/4 3/4
1/2 1/2
1/4 1/4
P.88
Lowpass, Bandpass and Highpass Filters
• Engineers frequently build three types of generic filters – the
lowpass, bandpass and highpass filters. They are the basic
building blocks of all signal processing systems. They can be
implemented as electrical circuits or in computer programs.
P.89
Lowpass filters
ideal
1 practical
0
fc
Bandwidth
P.90
Operations with an Ideal Lowpass Filter
0
0 1kHz 0 1kHz 0 1kHz
0
0 1kHz 0 1kHz 0 1kHz
P.91
Operations with a Practical Lowpass Filter
0
0 1kHz 0 1kHz 0 1kHz
0
0 1kHz 0 1kHz 0 1kHz
P.92
Lowpass Filtering of Telephone Voice Spectrum
• The traditional telephone network often uses a lowpass filter with
cutoff frequency of ~3 KHz to filter the voice signal coming in from
the telephone line.
lowpass
filter junk
f/Hz f/Hz
0 3K 10k 20k 0 3K 10k 20k
f/Hz
fL fH
Bandwidth
• A bandpass filter only allows signals within the designed
frequency range to pass through.
• fL and fH are lower and upper cutoff frequencies. Signals with
fH > f > fL can pass through. Other frequencies are blocked.
• fH – fL is the filter bandwidth (e.g. ears as bandpass filters have
a typical bandwidth of from 20 Hz to 20 KHz; tuner for an analog
TV has a filter bandwidth of 6 MHz to extract the audio and video
signal from the desired radio channel)
P.94
Selecting Channels with Bandpass Filters
e.g. In a radio, we select a channel at a particular frequency band by using a
(bandpass) filter.
“ideal”
input (X) ● filter (H) = output (Y)
20KHz
Signal
1 1 1 from a
desired
channel
0 0 0
0.98MHz 1MHz 1MHz 1MHz
too long
to draw
input (X) filter (H)
“practical” output (Y)
20KHz
1 Garbage/
interference
0
0 1MHz 0 1MHz 0 1MHz
P.95
Different Bandpass Filters select Different Channels
By tuning the passband of the filter, we can select different radio signals
1 Q
input (X) 0
P QR S V
1 S
P.96
• We can easily understand what systems do by looking at them
as filters which multiply the input signal in the frequency domain.
2
1 1
0 0 0
0 1kHz 0 1kHz 0 1kHz
output (Y)
2
0
0 1kHz
P.97
Discussion
P.98
Signal Processing Software
• How signal processing technology help us modify a
music?
P.99
Time-domain Signal of a Music
• enlarge a
portion of the
audio signal
P.100
Spectrum of the Music Signal
20 log10 (A) • If we convert the signal from the time
Amplitude
domain to the frequency domain, the
104
spectrum reveals many frequency
components
102
100 20 kHz
10-2
10-4
P.101
Lowpass Filtering
This part of the signal are filtered out.
P.102
Lowpass Filtering
P.103
Highpass Filtering
This part of the signal are filtered out.
7 kHz
cutoff
frequency
After highpass filtering
P.104
Bandpass Filter
Bandpass filtering (a simulation on the telephone channel
that only passes up to about 3 kHz)
i.e. the telephone voice bandwidth is ~3 kHz; the mobile
voice bandwidth is ~4 kHz This part of the signal are kept.
P.106
Summary – Lecture 6
• Systems can be viewed as filters which process sine waves in the
input signal in the frequency domain.
(check Canvas to find the data and program to generate all figures in this lecture)
P.107
ELEC1010 Electronic & Information Technology
Lecture 7
Frequency Translation
P.108
Early Analog Cellular Systems (1G)
• 1st Generation (1G) cellular phones operated with carrier
frequencies below 1 GHz. They were analog systems, meaning
that speech signals were transmitted as analog waveforms:
Year of 1G launching Countries/Cities
1979 Japan
1981 Europe
1983 USA
1985 UK
• Multiple users in the cell talked to the same base station at the
same time using FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)
• 1G (analog) systems had problems with call quality. It was also
very insecure. Snoopers could tap calls with a simple radio
scanner, and eavesdrop ID from your phone to charge calls to
your account.
• 1G was completely phased out in HK by 1998!
P.109
Amplitude Modulation (AM)
• In AM, we simply multiply the baseband signal with a high
frequency carrier radio wave. The amplitude of the modulated
radio wave reflects the amplitude of the baseband signal.
Baseband
signal
Radio wave
carrier
P.110
Amplitude Modulation (AM)
• fc is the carrier frequency. Different AM radio broadcast stations,
for example, use different carrier frequencies.
• Station AM864 in Hong Kong, for example, uses a carrier
frequency of 864 KHz.
P.111
Frequency Mixing
• Multiply two signals together is also called mixing, because
the resulted signal will contain frequencies that is a mixture,
meaning the sums and differences, of the frequencies in the
original signals
• Consider multiplying two sine waves of frequencies f1 and f2
together. The result is two new sine waves, one at frequency
(f1 + f2), another at frequency (f1– f2), because:
sin (2p f1t) x sin (2p f2t)
= ½ cos (2p (f1–f2) t) - ½ cos (2p (f1+f2) t)
• Assume f1 is the “carrier” frequency, and f2 the “baseband”
(message) frequency in AM modulation system. f1 is usually
much larger than f2. By mixing the baseband signal with the
carrier, we have shifted it to two high frequencies.
P.112
AM Modulation (example 1)
• Suppose an audio message in the baseband is a
simple sine wave (e.g. a pure tone) at f2 = fm = 1 kHz
2 kHz bandwidth
f/Hz
100 1k 10k 100k 1M
• The modulated signal has frequency components on both
sides of the carrier frequency. Each side is called a sideband.
P.114
Demodulation – Recovering the Baseband
• In principle, demodulation (un-do the modulation) can be
done by multiplying the modulated signal by the carrier again.
(fc–fm) mixes with fc gives 2fc –fm and fm
(fc+fm) mixes with fc gives 2fc+fm and fm
• If the high-frequency components of 2fc–fm and 2fc+fm are
filtered away (low-pass filtering), then what is left is the
baseband signal fm!
“before demodulation” “after demodulation”
t “envelope”
+ve
1 t
0 t “multiply” -ve
-1
original
RF carrier
P.116
Modulation (example 2)
• When we sing a song or when we talk, the frequency
components changes quickly with time and the baseband
spectrum appears as a continuous frequency spectrum.
A continuous baseband
spectrum singing a song, or
making a speech
f
1 5 10 kHz
P.117
Modulation (example 2)
“Before modulation” “after modulation” modulated signal
(assumed baseband (modulated signal bandwidth =
bandwidth ~ 10 kHz) bandwidth ~ 20 kHz) baseband
bandwidth x2
Mirror
image
“multiply”
1
0 t
-1
RF carrier e.g. sin(2𝜋106t)
P.118
Multiple Frequency Channels
• Modulation moves the different baseband signals to different
carrier frequencies.
• Multiple channels can therefore be transmitted at the same time
as each occupies a different “frequency band” and won’t interfere
with each others.
• In principle, we can shift a modulated signal back to baseband by
mixing with the carrier frequency and filtering away the high
frequency components at the receiver. In practice, there are
different ways of doing demodulations effectively.
• This way of allowing multiple users/applications to access the
frequency spectrum is known as frequency-division multiple-
access (FDMA). This concept is central in many systems
(wireless or wired). Using FDMA, the government can allocate
different bands to different applications.
P.119
FDMA:
Modulating multiple signals with different carriers
Bandwidth of baseband
“Before modulation” = 10 kHz = 0.01 MHz
three different carriers
at 1, 1.04 and 1.08 MHz
(three individual audio
baseband signals all
occupy the same
frequency band)
100 1k 10 k 100 k 1M
P.121
Martin Luther King’s Speech Centered at
Different Frequencies
P.122
Martin Luther King’s Speech Centered at
Different Frequencies
P.123
Hillary Clinton’s Speech Centered at
Different Frequencies
P.124
Hillary Clinton’s Speech Centered at
Different Frequencies
P.125
P.126
Summary – Lecture 7
• Described the principle of Amplitude Modulation (AM)
• Illustrated the spectrum of a modulated signal
• Explained how modulation and demodulation can be done in
principle by frequency mixing
• Illustrated how frequency mixing is used to attain Frequency
Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
P.127