Signals in MatLab

How to describe a sinusoid in MatLab

An analog sinusoid can be described by the function x(t) = A.sin(2.f.t + )
A is the amplitude, f the frequency and is the phase angle in radians.
Assume that we will generate a sinusoid with N samples that includes f periods.
Calculate a set of number to be used as a time scale.
N = 0:N-1; % The numbers are n(1) = 0, N(2) = 1,.. n(N) = N-1
The frequency f can be interpreted as the number of periods per sample (f/N), since we
obtain f periods in N samples.
The signal can be described as: x = sin(2**f*n/N + );
During the total sampling period T = 1 sec we will get f periods and N samples. The sampling
time ts = 1/N sec. The sampling frequency fs = 1/ts = N Hz.
The Fourier transform is: Fx = fft(x);
Magnitude spectrum is: MFx = abs(fft(x)); or
Plot the spectrum : plot(MFx) or stem(MFx)

MFx = abs(Fx);

Frequency analysis of an even number of samples give the Nyqvist frequency at N/2 Hz and
the frequency resolution is df = 1/T = 1 Hz.
On the horizontal axis, the positive frequencies occupy the left half of the axis and the
negative frequencies occupy the right half. The figure shows how MatLab plots the
spectrum.
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Magnitude spectrum of sinusoid

f = 10 Hz N = 256sample

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Positive frequencies

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Negative frequencies

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The frequency with index n = 1 is zero. The numbers will be displaced by 1 step by plotting
the spectrum. We have to introduce a positive frequency axis numbered fro 0 to N/2 - 1.
We can use the earlier defined variable n to number the frequency axis.

Signals in MatLab page 1

A function that generate a sinusoid can look like this:

function

x=signal(f,N)

% sinusoid
% f=frequency, N=number of samples
% Total sampling time = 1 second
n = 0:N-1; % numbering the samples
x = sin(2*pi*f*n/N);
plot(x)
MFx = abs(fft(x));
plot(n(1:N/2),MFx(1:N/2)) % plot positive frequencies

Another way to present a spectrum is to use the command fftshift,

which center the frequencies around f = 0 that will be numbered N/2.
MFx = fftshift(abs(fft(x))); plot(MFx)
140

Magnitude spectrum of sinusoid

f = 10 Hz N = 256sample

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Negative frequencies

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Positive frequencies

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The signal and the spectrum can be plotted together with the commands:
subplot(2,1,1); plot(x)subplot(2,1,2);
plot(n(1:N/2),MFx(1:N/2))

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-1

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Signals in MatLab page 2

If we want to study the real- and imaginary part of the spectrum, we can extract these parts
by the commands:
RFX = real(Fx);

IFX = imag(Fx);

In the example we have been sampling during 1 sec and the frequency resolution is 1 Hz.
If we specify the sampling frequency to fs, which frequency resolution will we have?
With N sample the total sampling period is T = N/fs.
The frequency resolution df = 1/T = fs/N. Due to the symmetrical properties of the spectrum
we only use the positive frequencies.
The signal will be: x = sin(2*pi*f*n/fs);
The frequency scale is: frek = (0:N/2-1)*fs/N;
and we can plot the positive frequencies with:

plot(frek,MFx(1:N/2))

A function that generates a sinusoid with the sampling frequency fs can look like this:
function
%
%
%
%

x=signal(f,fs,N)

sinusoid
f=frequency, N=number of samples
fs=sampling frequency
Total sampling time = 1 second

n = 0:N-1; % numbering the samples

x = sin(2*pi*f*n/fs);
plot(x)
MFx = abs(fft(x));
frek=(0:N/2-1)*fs/N;
plot(frek,MFx(1:N/2))% plot the positive frequencies

you can add amplitude and phase angle to the function, and also determine how many
samples that will be plotted:
Function sinewave(N,f,fs,np)
% sinwave calculate and plot a sinusoid with N sample
% sampling frequency fs, frequency f and plot np
% samples
t=(0:N-1)/fs;
x = sin(2*pi*t*f);
plot(t(1:np),x(1:np))

Signals in MatLab page 3

Here is a suggestion how to generate some other signal in MatLab.

A square wave is generated by: y = sign(sin(2*pi*f*n/N));
Another function is square that also can generate asymmetrical pulse trains.
A sawtooth signal can be generated by: sawtooth(2*pi*f*n/N,0.5);
Some other functions are: pulstran, rectpuls, tripuls, gauspuls

Signals in MatLab page 4

Exporting signals in MatLab to.wav-files

.wav-files is a standard audio format in PC computers that can be handled by many programs.
MatLab can read and write .wav-files wit the following commands:

[x,Fs,bits] = wavread(filename) reads the file filename.wav to the vector x in

MatLab. Fs and bits extracts the sampling frequency and the bit resolution of the sampled signal.

x = wavread(filename,N) reads the first N samples.

wavwrite(x,Fs, filename) writes the vector x in a file with samplingfrequency Fs.
The standard resolution is 16 bits or 32768 levels. The amplitude is restricted to the interval [-1,+1]
in the vector x.

wavwrite(x,Fs,bit, filename)changes the resolution to bit bits.

Assume we have following parameters:
N = samples, fs = sampling frequency, fa = frequency of the .wav-file

n = 0:N-1 numbers the samples

A sinusoid will have the right frequency with the command: y = sin(2*pi*fa*n/fs);
Example: Generate a sinusoid with amplitude 0.1, frequency 100 Hz with 100000 samples and
sampling frequency 22050 Hz. Listen to the signal and save it to a .wav-file.
Total time for the signal is N/fs = 4.535 s.

N = 100000; fs = 22050; fa = 100; n = 0:N-1;

x = 0.1*sin(2*pi*fa*n/fs);
sound(x,fs)
wavwrite(x,fs,sinsound.wav);

What will the frequency be if we have a .wav-signal stored in the variable x?

If we take M samples of the signal, the total sampling time will be: T = M/fs
The frequency resolution is: df = 1/T = fs/M
Magnitude spectrum is: Fx = abs(fft(x))
We can generate a frequency axis for positive frequencies: frek=(0:M/2-1)*fs/N
Plotting the spectrum: plot(frek,Fx(1:M/2))

Signals in MatLab page 5