EE406 Discrete-Time Signal Processing Introduction

Introduction
Signal
q A signal is a function of independent variables such as time, distance, position,
temperature, pressure.

q A signal carries information.

q Examples of signals are speech, music, image and video signal.
q Signal can be a function of one, two or three independent variables, e.g. speech is a one-
dimensional (1-D) signal, function of time; image is a 2-D signal, function of space; video
is a 3-D signal, function of space and time.

q The independent variable of a 1-D signal is usually labelled as time.

Types of Signals
q 2 types of signals that are functions of time:
 Continuous-time signal: defined in a continuous range of time.

Continuous Amplitude: Analog signal

Discrete-valued Amplitude: Quantized boxcar signal

 Discrete-time signal: defined only at discrete instants in time (T, 2T, …,(n-1)T, nT,
(n+1)T,…)

Continuous Amplitude: Sampled-data signal

Discrete-valued Amplitude: Digital signal (both time and amplitude are
discrete)

q Figure 1 shows different types of signals that are functions of time.

Signal Processing
q The objective of signal processing is to extract the information carried by the signal.
q The method of information extraction depends on the type of signal and the nature of
information being carried by the signal.

q The information extraction process may be carried out in the original domain of the signal
or in a transformed domain.

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x(t) x(nT) xQ(nT) digital

signal
analog T sampled quantized processor
signal signal signal

Time & Amplitude Time discrete Time & Amplitude

continuous Amplitude continuous discrete

Figure 1 Types of Signals

Digital Signal Processing (DSP)

q Processing of the signal in digital form, or the processing of signal is carried out by a
digital computer.

Analog Sample- Digital Digital-to- Analog Analog

Analog-to-
Input and-hold Processor analog lowpass Output
digital
converter converter filter

Figure 2 Digital processing of an analog signal

q A digital signal processing (DSP) system must be able to

1. convert analog signals into digital information, in the form of a sequence of binary
numbers (sampling and analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion (quantization) are
involved).
2. perform operations (additions, multiplications, data transfers and logical functions) on
the digital information, either by a computer or special-purpose digital hardware.
3. convert the processed digital information back to an analog signal (digital-to-analog
(D/A) conversion and reconstruction are involved).

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Advantages of Digital Signal Processing

q Repeatability and Stability:
- digital systems can be easily duplicated
- digital systems do not depend on strict component tolerances
- digital system responses do not drift with temperature

q Flexibility:
- digital systems can be reprogrammed for other applications (at least where
programmable DSP chips are used)
- digital systems can be ported to different hardware (for example a different DSP chip
or board level product)

q Special applications:
- Some special signal processing functions can only be implemented digitally. Analog
electronics cannot simply implement them efficiently such as lossless compression,
linear phase filters, . . . etc.

q Security can be introduced by encryption/scrambling.

q Easily stored on magnetic media without deterioration.
q Reliability:
- More reliable because the processing of 0 and 1 is almost immune to noise.

Applications of Digital Signal Processing

q biomedical engineering: analysis of biomedical signals, diagnosis, patient monitoring,

preventive health care, artificial organs

q communication: encoding and decoding of digital communication signals, detection,

equalization, filtering, direction finding

q speech processing: noise filtering, coding, compression, recognition, synthesis

q image processing: enhancement, coding, compression, pattern recognition
q multimedia: transmission of sound, still images, motion pictures, digital TV, video
conferencing

q music: recording, playback and manipulation (mixing, special effects), synthesis

q radar and sonar: target detection, position and velocity estimation, tracking

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EE406 Discrete-Time Signal Processing Introduction

MATLAB

q MATLAB is an interactive, matrix-based system for scientific and engineering numeric

computation and visualization. Its strength lies in the fact that complex numerical
problems can be solved easily with a programming language similar to C. Moreover it
can be easily extended to create new commands and functions.

q MATLAB is an ideal software tool for studying digital signal processing. The excellent
graphing capability of MATLAB makes it possible to view the results of processing and
gain understanding into complicated operations.

q Throughout this course, we make extensive use of MATLAB to illustrate the various
concepts introduced.

q MATLAB is available on different platforms including UNIX, PC, Macintosh etc.

Students may refer to MATLAB User’s Guide and Reference Guide for a complete
reference, which can be found on the web site of our image processing laboratory at
http://image.cityu.edu.hk/matlab/.

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EE406 Discrete-Time Signal Processing Introduction

Discrete-Time Signal Representations

q For a discrete-time 1-D signal, it is represented as {x[n]}. Each member, x[n] is called a
sample, where n is an integer.

q Three most commonly used time-domain representations:

(1) Functional representation:

 1, n = 1, 3

x[n] = 4, n = 2, 4
 0, elsewhere


(2) Sequence representation:

x[n] = { . . . 0, 1, 4, 1, 4, 0, 0, . . . }

(3) Graphical representation:

Some Signals of Special Importance

q Several special types of sequences play an important role in discrete-time signal
processing.

1. Unit sample sequence (or Unit impulse)

1, n = 0
[n] = 
0, n ≠ 0
Likewise,
1, n = n 0
[n - n 0 ] = 
0, n ≠ n 0

represents a unit sample at the time n = n 0

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q The unit sample sequence plays a role similar to an impulse function in analog system
analysis. Any sequence, x[n], can be expressed as a sum of scaled, delayed impulses.

2. Unit step sequence

1, n ≥ 0
u[n] = 
0, n < 0

Similarly, the following step sequence is a time shifted version of u[n].

1, n ≥ n 0
u[n − n 0 ] =  .
0, n < n 0

q The unit sample and the unit step sequences are related as follows:
>Q@ = u[n] − u[n − 1]

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3. Exponential sequence

The general form of an exponential sequence is

x[n] = A n

If A and α are real numbers, then x[n] is real as shown below:

4. Sinusoidal sequence

A sinusoidal sequence has the general form

x[n] = A cos( 0 n + ), ∀n

with A and θ real constants, and is illustrated as follows.

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q An important difference between continuous-time and discrete-time sinusoids concerns

the periodicity.

q In the discrete-time case, a periodic sequence is a sequence for which

x[n] = x[n+N]

where the period N is necessarily an integer.

q For the discrete-time sinusoid,

A cos( 0 n+ ) = A cos( 0 n+ 0 N + ), ∀n

which requires that

0 N=2 k
where k is an integer.

q Sinusoidal sequences are not necessarily periodic in n with period (2 / 0 ) and

depending on the value of 0 , may not be periodic at all.

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