ABSTRACT

AS discussed in Chapter 8, the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) allows us to transform adiscrete-time signal from the sample (i.e., time) domain to the frequency domain. It is useful and often necessary to view the frequency content of a signal, and test equipment manufacturers market spectrum analyzers costing many thousands of dollars to perform this task. Nearly any engineer or technician working, for example, with communications or audio systems such as satellite up/down links, cellular telephone networks, radio/television stations, home theaters, or any high-end sound systemmust be able to analyze the frequency domain representation of signals. Rather than use a dedicated spectrum analyzer, we will explore how we can apply some basic DSP algorithms to achieve the same purpose.