THE ADAPTIVE SPECTROGRAM

Graetne Jones and Boualeni Boashash Centre for Signal Processing Research, Queensland University of Technology GPO Box 2434 Brisbane Q 4001 AUSTRALIA Tel - + G 1 7 864 2484 Fax - +61 7 864 1748

1 . INTRODUCTION The spectrogram is used in many non-stationary applications of digital signal processing, including speech analysis, underwater acoustics and time-varying spectrum estimation. T h e major limitation of the spectrogram, however, is that it is non-unique. T h e spectrogram is expressible in the form
Is(t,f)l2=

3.

INSTANTANEOUS PARAMETERS IN TIME-FREQUENCY

1 1 :

Z(T)/t(T

- t)e--j2rfrd712

(1)

where h ( t ) is the desired analysis window. Since a spectrogram may take any valid one-dimensional function as a window, there are effectively an infinite number that may be generated. T h e choice of a certain wiiidow over another may dramatically affect the final form of the spectrogram. If it is desired to generate the best possible spectrogram (under some given criterion), window selection must necessarily be adaptive. More significantly, due to the non-stationary behaviour of time-varying signals in the time-frequency plane, it is also required that the window be dependent on the analysis point considered in the plane. This paper will summarise a new adaptive spectrogram, which utilises iirstantaneous parameters to match appropriate windows in the time-frequency plane.

2 . T H E FORM OF T H E ADAPTIVE SPECTROGRAM

This implementation of the adaptive spectrogram employs Gaussian windows, of the generic form

The concept of an instantaneous parameter is familiar through the widely employed instantaneous frequency measure. It may be regarded as the instantaneous first frequency moment - instantaneous with respect to time. A similar quantity, also common in geophysics and spectroscopy applications, is the time delay - it is an instantaneous measure of the first time moment, and dependent on frequency. It is possible t o generalise such results, and define higher order instantaneous moments or cumulants (the instantaneous bandwidth [l], for example). T h e problem with such measures, and their attempts to instantaneously characterise a signal, is that they are only ever instantaneous with respect t o time or frequency, never both. When there are multiple regions of signal information present in the time-frequency plane, these type of ineasures cannot provide truly local descriptions of the si nals. Instantaneous parameters have recent y been generalised to two dimensions by the authors [2]. They have been derived in an identical fashion as for the one-dimensional signals, through Parseval's general Fourier relations 131. For two dimensions, however, the instantaneous power, I z ( t ) l z , and the energy density spectrum, l Z ( f ) I 2 , are replaced by spectrograms. In other words, the instantaneous parameters (of the spectrogram) are window dependent in the time-frequency plane. When using the WVD, the set of instantaneous parameters may be expressed as

qt) = e--xat'e--3xbi2,
T h e spectrogram may be alternately expressed as
IS(bf)lz =

(2)

Lrn 1,
m 0 3

Q(t,f9 ti,fi)dtidfi

(3)

where
Q(f,f,tl.fl)

= w = ( t l , f l ) w / , ( t l - k f - fl)

(4)

and W , ( t , f ) is the Wigner-Ville Distribution (WVD) of the signal and W h ( t , f )the WVD of the window. For the adaptive spectrogram, the window will be dependent on the time-frequency location under consideration. Thus the window's controlling parameters, U and b , will now be dependent on time and frequency, i.e. u ( t , f and b ( t , f). T h e task now is to determine appropriate win ows (that is, the parameters) for the time frequency points, under some criterion of optimality. T h e criterion used will be that of matching the instantaneous second order cumulants (variances) of the spectrogram to those of the window (which are constants for a Gaussian). Before this niethod is detailed, the necessary concept of instantaneous parameters is introduced.

From the equation above, it may also be seen that these parameters may be termed equivalently the #localmonients of the WVD, defined by the local region concentrated around the WVD of the window. These parameters are extensions of the one-dimensional measures - for example, if IL = 0 , m = 1 and h ( t ) -- 1 in the equation above, then the instantaneous parameter derived from (5) becomes the usual instantaneous frequency. These imtantaneous moments, and their associated cumulants, provide a local description of the signal (dependent on the window) in the time-frequency plane. In the same way that the global moments characterise the whole signal, these measures provide an instantaneous or local characterisation. They shall now be utilised in a window matching scheme, to generate an adaptive spectrogram.
4.

GENERATION OF T H E ADAPTIVE SPECTROGRAM

Local window matching in the time-frequency plane is employed here. It may be perceived as a complicated variation on the matched filter. In the case of a matched filter the

1.1.1

best output is achieved when the step respone of the filter is the time-reversed incoming si nal It is l o t feasible, however, to simply extend the matc%edfilter doncept, and use the signal itself as the spectrogram windo+. This will give the result

which is only a squared and scaled WVD. Due to the nonstationarity in the plane, the matching is a t the local or instantaneous level. The instantaneous p a ameters are used to obtain a partial signal characterisatiop 1 - this information is then used to match the appropripte window. Since the matching window is a Gaussian, which is com-

done^

. I -

E .-

ooo
shown to converge through the allowing local h c e r t a i n t y relationship [2, 41
~

-*eo

.%Q

I.**

1-92

a.-a

f t equency-ut

< x 133)

Figure 1: Normal Spectrogram

T2FO ( t,f)

- T I P ( t ,f ) 2 + T O P (t , j ) - TOP ( t , } ) 2 = - ( 7 )
I
47r

where the symbols in the above equation refed to those of equation (5). Equation (7) is satisfied for ahy arbitrary signal under analysis with a window of the f o r k

Simulations have shown that good convergdnce may be achieved in as little as four iterations. T h e colnputational load of the adaptive spectrogram is approximately proportional to 7 5 1 N 3 [4] ( I is the number of iterations1 used), conipared to N210g2N for the conventional spectrbgram (over an N x N point time-frequency array). T h e method may be made more efficient, a t the expense of creating a suboptimal spectrogram, but o e that still possesses excellent resolution. An instantaneods characteristic function may be created [2], through whicli the instantaneous moments and cumulants of the spectro ram can be expressed (with some effort) in terms of the glofal moments or cumulants of the signal and window themsel$es. Explicit expressions for the instantaneous cumulants mdy be derived if, for example, only the moments to the foukth order of both signal and window are considered. By eqbating these approximate expressions for the instantaneouf second order cumulants to the cumulants of the Gaussian window, appropriate window parameters may be deterrdined for any I given time-frequency point.

n
~

000

.*eo

. 9 6 0

I.*-

1 . 9 2

2n o

--

,f r equeney-Hz ( X IO 3 )

Figure 2: Adaptive Spectrogram [2] G. Jones and B. Boashash, The Theory of Instantaneous Window Matching for Time-Frequency Distributions, Proc. Int. Synip. on Signal Processing and its Applications, Gold Coast, Australia, August, 1992.
[3] A. W. Rihaczek, Principles of High Resolution Radar, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1969.
[4] G. Jones, 1nstantai:eous Frequency, Time-Frequency Distributions and the Analysis of Multicomponent Sig-

5. FIGURES Two figures are included which give some idea formance of the adaptive spectrogram. Data of a humpback whale song is analysed,, comprising 64 d a t a saxnples with an equivalent sampling rate of 5000 Hz. Figure 1 Shows a normal spectogram (with a Gaussian window whbse WVD is circular in the time-frequency region consideied). Figure 2 shows the adaptive spectrogram, taken after ~4iterations. I t is a much clearer and better resolved spectrogram than the first, and required no assumptions on the folm the data.
I

nals, Ph. D. Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 1992.

REFERENCES [l] L. Cohen and C. Lee,Instantaneous Bandwidth, Chapter 4, in Methods and Applications of TinieFrequency Signal Analysis, B. Boa5hash Eb., Halstead

Press (Wiley), 1992.

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