ZERO PADDING

What is Zero padding ?

Zero padding is a simple concept; it simply refers to adding

zeros to end of a time-domain signal to increase its length.

By zero padding we can increase density of samples i.e, we can

increase frequency resolution.

Zero padding won’t change DFT output.It changes only density of

samples in the DFT.
WHY ZERO PADDING ?

We want more density space samples.Density space

samples are used to show DFT graph more accurately.

We want input sequence as a power of 2 i.e, (2^n).

Advantages of Zero padding

Adding zeros is equal to interpolating samples of your spectrum with

sinc function. Therefore you will find it looking more smoothly. It is not
affecting frequency resolution in any way.

If you are trying to convolve your signal with some pattern using
FFT, then you need to pad your signals with zeros to the appropriate
length. Otherwise result of convolution will be incorrect.