EE 220 : Signals and Systems

Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineerng

Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati
Monsoon 2023

Topic 19 : Sampling and aliasing

Instruction and notes by : Manish

1 Sampling
Sampling is the process to transform a continuous time signal into a discrete time signal.
Sampling is done to process a signal in computers. Sometimes, sampling is also performed on
discrete time signals to change effective data rate, this is called subsampling. In simple terms,
subsampling involves discarding certain values of the signals to compress its size.

2 Continuous time representation of DT signals

CTFT
We want to express a CTFT pair xδ (t) ←−−→ Xδ (ω) such that it corresponds to the DTFT
DTFT
pair x[n] ←−−→ X(Ω).

Figure: The DTFT is 2π periodic in Ω, while the CTFT Xδ (ω) is 2π/Ts periodic in ω.

We need to begin the discussion by establishing a relation between ω and Ω. For CT

representation of a DT signal, we would like to form an equivalence relation between complex

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sinusoids z[n] = ejΩn and x(t) = ejωt . Suppose we force z[n] to be equal to the samples of x(t)
taken at interval of Ts ; that is, z[n] = x[nTs ]. This would lead to

ejΩn = ejωTs n

From this we can conclude that

Ω = ωTs (1)
Now, The DTFT of a discrete time signal x[n] is given as
∞
X
X(Ω) = x[n]e−jΩn
n=−∞

Substitute Ω = ωTs from Eq. (1):

∞
X
X(Ω)|Ω=ωTs = Xδ (ω) = x[n]e−jωTs n
n=−∞

We know that multiplication with e−jωTs n in frequency domain corresponds to nTs shift in
time domain. Thus, it would mean that corresponding time domain representation will be
∞
X
xδ (t) = x[n]δ(t − nTs )
n=−∞

The above equation is referred as continuous time representation of x[n]. Hence,

∞ ∞
CTFT
X X
xδ (t) = x[n]δ(t − nTs ) ←−−→ Xδ (ω) = x[n]e−jωTs n
n=−∞ n=−∞

here, xδ (t) is the continuous time signal that corresponds to x[n] and Xδ (ω) corresponds to
X(Ω). Sampling interval Ts sets the relation between ω and Ω.

3 Sampling of continuous time signals

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 Observing from the figure, we can write that
∞
X ∞
X ∞
X
xδ (t) = x(t) δ(t − nTs ) = x(t)δ(t − nTs ) = x(nTs )δ(t − nTs )
n=−∞ n=−∞ n=−∞

Sometimes p(t) is also used as a notation for impulse train, i.e.

∞
X
p(t) = δ(t − nTs )
n=−∞

We have derived in previous topics that CTFT of periodic impulse train p(t) would be
∞
2π X
P (ω) = δ(ω − kωs )
Ts k=−∞

here, ωs = 2π/Ts is the sampling frequency.

Now, Xδ (ω) can be written as
∞
1 2π X
Xδ (ω) = X(ω) ⋆ δ(ω − kωs )
2π Ts k=−∞
∞
1 X
= X(ω − kωs )
Ts k=−∞

CTFT
Homework: In the above discussion show that p(t) ←−−→ P (ω).
Hint: First find the CTFS coefficients P (k) of periodic impluse train p(t) and then use
them to evaluate P (ω). (Done in CTFT topic : CTFT of periodic signals)

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 In the figure 4.22 here, spectrum of the sampled signal is equal to periodic repetitions of
the spectrum of the original signal. Three cases are shown here. When ωs = 3W or 2W , we
can still retain the complete bandwidth. But when ωs = W , we lose some information.
Overlap in the shifted replicas of the original signal is termed aliasing. Aliasing distorts the
spectrum of the sampled signal. We can also observe that aliasing can be prevented by choos-
ing the sampling interval Ts such that ωs > 2W , where W is the highest nonzero frequency
component in the signal.

The DTFT of the sampled signal can also be obtained from Xδ (ω) by using the relation
Ω = ωTs ; i.e,
DTFT
x[n] ←−−→ X(Ω) = Xδ (ω)|ω=Ω/Ts

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Reference material
1. Textbook: Signals and Systems by Simon Haykin
2. Lecture notes are inspired from the course materials of JHU 520.214; MIT 6.003; Purdue
ECE-301; UVic ECE-260; and Imperial College E2.5
[Please report any typos in the notes by sending an email to the instructor.]