Lecture - 1

Fundamental Concepts of Signals and Systems

Course outline
• Introduction to Signals and Systems

• Classification: CT, and DT, Deterministic, Random

Periodic, aperiodic, even & Odd signal decomposition,
Energy signals, power signals

• Characterization

• modeling of signals and systems

• Analog and Digital signals

Introduction to Signals and Systems
▪ Any time-varying physical phenomenon that is intended to convey
information is a signal.

▪ Examples of signals are the human voice, sign language, traffic signals,
voltages on telephone wires, electric fields emanating from radio or
television transmitters, and variations of light intensity in an optical
fiber on a telephone.

▪ Noise is like a signal but, it does not carry useful information

Introduction to Signals and Systems
▪ Examples of signals are:
✓Electrical signal: Voltages and currents in a circuit.

✓Mechanical signals: velocity of a car over time.

✓Video signals: intensity level of pixel (camera, video) over time.

- intensity variations in an image (e.g. CAT scan)

✓Acoustic signals: Acoustic pressure (sound) over time.

✓Biological signals: sequence of bases in a gene…. DNA

Introduction to Signals and Systems
• A system is an entity that manipulates one or more signals to
accomplish a function, thereby yielding new signals.
• Overview of a system:

Systems
1 Signal?
✓ f(t): 1D
Some of systems are:
✓ f(x, y): 2D
✓Communication system
✓ f(x, y, z) or f(x, y, t): 3D
✓ Control system
✓ 4D?
Examples of signals: ✓Remote sensing
speech, audio, light, radio, TV, ✓Biological signal processing
radar, supersonic, temperature, ✓Auditory system
ECG(electromyogram), EEG
(electroencephalogram), etc.
classification of signals
1. Continuous- time and discrete- time signals

2. Even and odd signals

3. Periodic and non-periodic signals

4 Deterministic and random signals.

5. Energy signals, power signals

6. Analog and digital signals

1. Continuous- time (CT)and discrete- time (DT) signals

▪ A signal x(t) is said to

be a CT if it defines
for all time t.

▪ DT signals is defined
only at discrete
instance of time.
2. Even and Odd signals
▪ A continuous-time signal x(t) is said to be an even signal if it
satisfies the condition x(-t) = x(t) for all t. ………1.1

▪ Even signal is symmetric about the vertical axis or time origin.

▪ A continuous-time signal x(t) is said to be an odd signal if it

satisfies the condition x(-t) = - x(t) for all t………..1.2

▪ Odd signal is Asymmetric about the time origin.

2. Even and Odd signals
Example 1.1: Develop the even/odd decomposition of a
general signal x(t) by applying definition 1.2 & 1.3.

Solution: let the signal X(t) be expressed as the sum of two

components 𝑥e 𝑡 and 𝑥0 𝑡 as follow.

and

Putting t as –t
Solving for 𝑥e 𝑡 and 𝑥0 𝑡 we thus obtain

and

even and odd value signals have assume real value & complex value.

A complex value signal x(t) is said to be conjugate symmetric if it satisfies the

condition, Where the asterisk denotes complex conjugate. Let

……………….…….…1.4

where a(t) is real part & b(t) is imaginary part j = −⊥

3. Periodic and nonperiodic signals
▪ A periodic signal x(t) is a function that satisfies the condition

X(t) = x(t + T) for all t. ……………….. 1.5

Where T is a positive constant, and satisfies

for T = To then T = 2To, 3To, …

1 2𝜋
𝑓= ………… 1.6 and 𝜔 = .............1.7
𝑇 𝑇

Where f is frequency, T is period, 𝜔 is angular frequency.

A signal x(t) for which there is no value of T to satisfy the condition eq. (1.5) is
called nonperiodic signal.

X[n] = x[n +N] for all integer N……. 1.8

Rectangular pulse of
Squire wave with amplitude A = 1 and amplitude A and
peiod T = 0.2 s duration T1.
The smallest value of integer N for eq. (1.8) satisfied is called the
fundamental period of the discrete-time signal x[n].

The fundamental angular frequency (fundamental frequency) x[n] is

𝜋
defined as 𝛺 = …………………… 1.9
𝑁

Fundamental unit of 𝛺 (fundamental frequency) is radian.

4. Deterministic and random signals
Deterministic signal is a signal about
which there is no uncertainty with
respect to its value at any time.

Random signal is a signal about

which there is uncertainty before
its actual occurrence. A periodic discrete time
Examples: signal consisting of
three nonzero samples
noise signal generating in a TV,
radio, mobile phone.
5. Energy signals & Power signals
In electrical systems, signal represent as a voltage or a current.

𝑣2
The instantaneous power 𝑃 𝑡 = ………………………..1.10
𝑅

Equivalently 𝑝 𝑡 = 𝑅𝐼 2 𝑡 ………………………………………1.11

Instantaneous power of a signal 𝑃 𝑡 = 𝑥 2 𝑡 ……………1.12

Total energy of the continuous-time signal x(t) as

𝑇Τ ∞
𝐸 = lim ‫׬‬−𝑇Τ2 𝑋 2 𝑡
2
= ‫׬‬−∞ 𝑥 2 𝑡 …………………………..1.13
𝑇→∞

1 𝑇Τ2
Its average power is 𝑃 = lim ‫׬‬−𝑇Τ2 𝑥 2 𝑡 ⅆ𝑡 ………………1.14
𝑇
𝑇→∞
Average power of a periodic signal x(t) of fundamental period T is given by

1 𝑇Τ2 2
𝑃= ‫׬‬ 𝑥 𝑡 ⅆ𝑡…………………………...1.15
𝑇 −𝑇Τ2

The square root of the average power P is called root mean-square (rms) value
of the signal x(t).

In case if discrete-time signal x[n], the integral eq. (1.3) and (1.4) are

Replaced by corresponding sums. Thus the total energy of x[n] is

∞
𝐸= ෌𝑛=−∞ 𝑥 2 𝑛 ………………………..….1.16

𝑁
Average power is defined by 𝑝 = lim ෌𝑛=−𝑁 𝑥 2 𝑛 …………………...1.17
𝑁→∞
From eq. 1.7 average power in a period signal x[n] with
fundamental period N is given by
1 𝑁−1 2
𝑝= ෌𝑛=0 𝑥 𝑛 ……………………. 1.18
𝑁

A signal is referred to as energy signal if and only if the total

energy of the signal satisfies the condition 0<𝐸<∞

A signal is referred to as power signal if and only if the average

energy of the signal satisfies the condition. 0<𝑃<∞
Modeling of Signals and Systems
▪ Modeling is the process of making a system model, i.e. implies the
process of collecting and organizing knowledge about a given
system.

▪ Experimental modeling, which is also called identification, is based

on experimentation over inputs, ie. outputs of the real system.

▪ In practical cases, combined modeling is most often used.

Modeling of Signals and Systems
✓Simulation is an experimental technique for solving problems
related to the system, but with the help of a realized system model.

✓Models can generally be classified into two basic groups of

physical and abstract models.
With Simulink, We can:
✓Describe system architecture using intuitive architecture models

✓Develop maintainable large-scale models

✓Integrate components from different teams and tools

✓Simulate and analyze to understand and validate system behaviors

✓Run massive simulation jobs in parallel on your multicore desktop

✓Deploy simulations as standalone executables, web apps

Analog Signal
▪ Analog signal can have infinite number of values and varies
continuously with time.

▪ The two main types of signals that are used in systems are analog
& digital signals. Example of analog signal is human voice.
Characteristics of Analog Signal
1. Amplitude: the height of the signal. It is equal to the vertical
distance from a given point on the waveform to the horizontal axis.
✓The maximum amplitude of a sine wave is equal to the highest value it
reaches on the vertical axis as shown in figure.
Characteristics of Analog Signal
2. Period: measured in seconds, and others are millisecond (10-3 sec.)
microsecond, (10-6 sec), nanosecond (10-9 sec) and picoseconds (10-12 sec).

✓Period refers to the amount of time in which a signal completes one cycle.

3. Frequency: measured in Hertz (Hz)

✓It is the number of wave patterns completed in a given period of time.

✓it refers to number of periods in one second or number of cycles per second.
Characteristics of Analog Signal
4. Phase: measured in degrees or radians.
✓Phase describes the position of the waveform relative to time zero.

✓Phase describes the amount by which the waveform shifts forward or

backward along the time axis.

✓It indicates the status of first cycle.

Advantages of Analog Signals
✓Best suited for the transmission of audio and video.

✓Consumes less bandwidth than digital signals to carry the same

information. Bandwidth is a range of frequencies within a given
band, in particular that used for transmitting a signal. Frequencies
is the rate at which something occurs over a particular period of
time or in a given sample.

✓Analog systems are readily in place around the world.

✓Analog signal is less susceptible to noise.

Digital signals
▪ Computers are digital in nature. Computers process, store, and communicate
information in binary form. i. e the combination of 1s and 0s which has
specific meaning in computer language.

▪ Analog voice and video can be converted into digital, and digital data can be
converted to analog, each format has its own advantages.

▪ It can have only a limited number of defined values such as 1 and 0.

▪ Digital signals are represented by square wave.

Digital signals
▪ In digital signals 1 is represented by having a positive voltage and 0 is
represented by having no voltage or zero voltage as shown in figure.

▪ All the signals generated by computers and other digital devices are digital
in nature.
Characteristics of Digital Signals
1. Bit interval: It is the time required to send one single bit.

2. Bit rate: the number of bit intervals in one second.

✓It is the number of bits sent in one second.

✓Bit rate is expressed in bits per second (bps).

✓Other units used to express bit rate are Kbps, Mbps and Gbps.
Advantages of Digital Signals
✓Digital Data
✓Compression
✓Security
✓Quality
✓Cost
✓Upgradeability
✓Management
Why digital signal processing?
▪ Filtering: Eliminating noise from signals

▪ Synthesis and manipulation: E.g. speech synthesis, music

synthesis, graphics.

▪ Analysis: atmospheric data, stock market analysis.

▪ Voice communication: processing, encoding and decoding for

store and forward.

▪ Voice, audio and image coding for compression.

Why digital signal processing?
▪ Active noise cancellation: Headphones, mufflers in cars

▪ Image processing, computer vision

▪ Computer graphics

▪ Industrial applications: Vibration analysis, chemical analysis

▪ Biomed: MRI, Cat scans, imaging, assays, ECGs, EMGs etc.

▪ Radar, Sonar
Properties of systems
Periodicity- the signal’s behavior/graph repeats after every T. Therefore,

here T is the fundamental period

So we can say signal remains unchanged when shifted by multiples of T.
Even and Odd- an even signal is symmetric about the Y-axis.
x(t)=x(-t) even
x(t)=-x(-t) odd
A signal can be broken into it’s even and odd parts to make certain
conversions easy.
Linearity- constitutes of two properties-

(i) Additivity/Superposition

if x1(t) -> y1(t)

and x2(t) -> y2(t)

(ii) Property of scaling-

if x1(t) -> y1(t) then

If both are satisfied, the system is linear.

Time invariant- Any delay provided in the input
must be reflected in the output for a time invariant system.

here x2(t) is a delayed input.

We check if putting a delayed input through the system is

the same as a delay in the output signal.
LTI systems- A linear time invariant system. A system that is linear and
time-invariant.

BIBO stability- The bounded input bounded output stability.

We say a system is BIBO stable if-

Causality- Causal signals are signals that are zero for all negative time.

If any value of the output signal depends on a future value of the input
signal then the signal is non-causal.
Application areas of signals and systems
Control

Communications

Signal processing
Application areas of signals and systems
Control: Industrial control and automation
Examples: Controlling the position of a valve or
shaft of a motor
Important Tools:
• Time-domain solution of differential equations
• Transfer function (Laplace Transform)
• Stability
• Communications: Transmission of information (signal) over a channel.
• The channel may be free space, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable
• A key component of transmission: Modulation (Analog and Digital
Communication)
Application areas of signals
Signal processing is application of algorithms to modify signals
in a way to make them more useful.
Goals:
✓Efficient and reliable transmission, storage and display of information
✓Information extraction and enhancement
Examples:
✓Speech and audio processing
✓Multimedia processing (image and video)
✓Underwater acoustic
✓Biological signal analysis
Multimedia Applications
✓Compression: Fast, efficient, reliable transmission and storage of data

✓Applied on audio, image and video data for transmission over the
Internet, storage

✓Examples: CDs, DVDs, MP3, MPEG4, JPEG

✓Mathematical Tools: Fourier Transform, Quantization, Modulation

JPEG Example
43K 13K 3.5K

• JPEG uses Discrete-Cosine Transform (similar to

Fourier Transform)
Biological Signal Analysis
• Examples:
✓Brain signals (EEG)

✓Cardiac signals (ECG)

✓Medical images (x-ray, PET, MRI)

• Goals:
✓Detect abnormal activity (heart attack, seizure)

✓Help physicians with diagnosis

• Tools: Filtering, Fourier Transform

Example
• Brain waves are usually contaminated by noise and
hard to interpret.
Biometrics
▪ Identifying a person using physiological characteristics

▪ Examples:
✓Fingerprint Identification

✓Face Recognition

✓Voice Recognition
Audio Signal Processing
• Active noise cancellation: Adaptive filtering
✓Headphones used in cockpits

• Digital Audio Effects

✓Add special music effects such as delay, echo, reverb

• Audio signal separation

✓Separate speech from interference
✓Wind sound from music in cars
Filtering Example