EE 345S Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Laboratory - Lecture 4 Notes

Here are a few questions that arose during the presentation of lecture 4 slides in Fall 2004. Slides numbers have been adjusted to reflect the current version of the slides.

Ideal Lowpass Filter

Why can't an ideal (analog) lowpass filter be used in practice, e.g. for filtering a signal before sampling (slide 4-3) or reconstructing a signal from its samples (slide 4-3)?

An ideal lowpass filter has a frequency response equal to 1 over a band of low frequencies [-W, W] and 0 elsewhere. From EE 313, this rectangular pulse in the frequency domain has an inverse Fourier transform that is a sinc signal, which is sin(2 pi W t) / (pi W t), as shown on slide 7-10. This sinc signal is two-sided in time. It cannot be realized by a causal system.

Difference in Sampling Theorems

Is there a difference between the Shanon Sampling Theorem and the Bandpass Sampling Theorem?

Yes. The Sampling Theorem (slide 4-8) says that the sampling rate fs must be greater than 2 fmax. The Bandpass Sampling Theorem (slide 4-22) says that the sampling rate can be lowered from fs > 2 f2 to fs > (f2 - f1) if the signal being sampled is bandpass, i.e. only has non-zero frequency content in the bands [-f2, -f1] and [f1, f2].

Bandpass Sampling

How does bandpass sampling work?

Bandpass sampling (slide 4-22) takes advantage of the fact that sampling replicates the spectrum of the signal being sampled at integer multiples of the sampling rate (slide 4-5).

So, if signal to be sampled has non-zero frequency content in the bands [-f2, -f1] and [f1, f2], then sampling will create an infinite but countable number of replicas. The band [f1,f2] will have replicas in the negative direction [f1 - fs, f2 - fs], [f1 - 2 fs, f2 - 2 fs], etc., and positive direction [f1 + fs, f2 + fs], [f1 + 2 fs, f2 + 2 fs], etc. Similar replicas occur for the other band [-f2, -f1].

In order to prevent aliasing,

fs > (f2 - f1)

In order for one replica of each bandpass band to be centered at the origin, the condition

fc = k fs

must hold, where k is an integer and fc is the mid-point of the frequency band [f1, f2], i.e. fc = 1/2 (f1 + f2).


Last updated 07/16/07. Send comments to (Mailbox)bevans@ece.utexas.edu