Week 2 - Classification and Properties of Signals

Monday, March 22, 2021 8:00 AM

1.1 Energy and Power of Signals

• In all applications, signals are directly related to physical quantities capturing power and energy in physical systems
• Example:
○ What would be the instantaneous power in a simple resistive circuit?
○ What would be the total energy expended over a particular time interval?
○ What would be the average power over this interval?

1.2 Transformations of Independent Variable

1.2.1 Shift in Time

1.2.2 Inversion in Time

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1.2.3 Scaling in Time

1.3 Periodic Signals

• Definition: If a continuous time signal x(t) has the property that there is a positive value of T for which

then we would say that x(t) is periodic with T.

• Equation (1) holds true for T, 2T, 3T, …

• Fundamental period: smallest possible value of T for which (1) is true
• What if x(t) is a constant?
• Periodic signals are defined analogously in discrete-time

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 Example 1

1.4 Even and Odd Signals

• A useful property of signal relates to its symmetry under time reversal

• Even Signal: A signal x(t) or x[n] is called an even signal is if it is equal to its time reversed counterpart, i.e., with its reflection
across origin
• Odd Signal: A signal is referred to as odd signal if its time reversed counterpart is equal to negative of it; an odd signal must
necessarily be 0 at t=0 or n=0

• Decomposition of a Signal into Even and Odd Components

○ Any signal can be broken down into two components, one of which is even and the other is odd

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 Example 2: Decompose the following signal x[n] into even and odd parts

1.5 Exponential and Sinusoidal Signals

• The continuous time complex exponential is of the form

where C and a are in general complex numbers.

• Class 1: Real Exponential Signals (Three Cases)
○ a>0
○ a<0
○ a=0
• Check yourself: plot and check in Octave or Geogebra

• Class 2: Periodic Complex Exponential and Sinusoidal Signals

○ A second class of exponential signals arises if we constrain a to be purely imaginary
○ An important property of these signals is that they are periodic
○ To verify
 Put a = jwo in (3)
 Now apply the periodicity condition from (1)
○ A signal closely related to the periodic complex exponential is the sinusoidal signal

• What are the units of t, phi and omega? (seconds, radians and radians/ sec)
• Euler's relation is a useful tool to write complex exponentials in terms of sinusoidal signals of same fundamental period and vice versa

Example 3: Plot the magnitude of the following signal

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 • Class 3: General Complex Exponential Signals
○ The most general case is when the above two cases are combined
○ For complex exponential in (3), express C in polar form and a in rectangular form

Discrete-Time case can be developed in a similar manner as continuous case

1.6 Periodicity of Discrete Time Complex Exponentials

• Properties of Continuous-Time Exponential Signal
Uniqueness. The larger the magnitude of fundamental frequency, higher is the rate of oscillation in the signal

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 ○ Uniqueness. The larger the magnitude of fundamental frequency, higher is the rate of oscillation in the signal
○ Periodicity. The signal is periodic for any value of fundamental frequency
• Properties of Discrete-Time Exponential Signal
○ Not unique since exponentials are same at a shift of even multiples of pi
○ Note that, in particular for any odd multiple of pi

○ In order for the discrete-time exponential signal to be periodic with period N>0,

which means that

and in order for this relationship to hold, woN must be a multiple of 2pi. That is there must be an integer m such that

or equivalently

Example 4: Find the fundamental period of the following signal

1.7 The Discrete-Time Unit Impulse and Unit Step Sequence

Contents Covered from the Textbook: Chapter 1 (till section 1.4)

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What you should be able to do after this week:
1. Differentiate between continuous-time and discrete time signals
2. Shift, scale and invert signals
3. Decompose both kind of signals into their even and odd components
4. Find out if a signal is periodic and compute its period
5. Find out magnitude and angle of complex exponential signals
6. Characterize composite signals into impulse and unit step sequences

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