ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with some basic signal properties and signal processing operations that are important in many applications, particularly in instrumentation, communications, and control systems. The starting point for such a discussion is the Fourier transform (FT). Although the Laplace transform has several advantages over the FT in circuit analysis, the FT is fundamental to signal analysis. The chapter discusses many of the operational properties of the Laplace transform but has some unique and very useful properties. The FT provides a powerful tool for working in the frequency domain. The chapter covers several basic properties of signals and systems. It suggests that the impulse responses of first-order systems are decaying, or saturating, exponentials. The usefulness of FT techniques has been greatly enhanced by digital computation, based on a rapid and efficient algorithm known as the fast Fourier transform (FFT) that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT).
