Exercises on Fourier analysis

Simple example of Fourier transform

Plot the Fourier transform of for frequency below 50 Hz. using the fft function of the module numpy.fft.

• Which sample rate do you use ?
• On which duration should you calculate f ?
• What happens if this duration is 10 time too long ?
• What happens if it is not a multiple of the period of the signal ?

Power spectral density

The power spectral density (PSD) is defined as the square of the modulus of the Fourier transform of a signal divided by the integration time. It is defined only for positive frequencies.

• Write a function in Python that calculates the PSD for a given signal (numpy array). This function will return two arrays : the frequencies and the corresponding PSD.

  • What is the unit of the PSD ?
  • Which parameter should we add in order to get the correct freuqencies ?
  • What is the minimal (non zero) and maximal frequency ?

Sound analysis

In the given file, we have synthetized a 10 second sound (son/data.dat). It consists of a noise. After 3 seconds, there is a distinct sound during 4 seconds.

• Load the file and get its sample rate
• Are you able to see the difference of the noise with or without the sound by simply plotting the amplitude ?
• Plot the PSD of the noise with and without the sound. What is the frequency of the sound ?

Window function

When the duration of the sample is not a multiple of the period of the signal we want to look at, the DFT will not give a single peak. If the amplitude of the signal is small compared to the noise or to another signal, it can be hidden.

In order to reduce this problem, we should use a window function (apodization). It will concentrate the energy onto the central frequency.

There are different kinds of window function (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_function for a complete description with comparison). We will use the Hamming window function. In python it can written as

def Hamming(N):
    \"\"\" Hamming window

    input : N, number of points

    output : window
    \"\"\"

    #Valeurs des coefficients
    a0 = 0.54
    a1 = 0.46

    n = arange(N)
    w_Hamming = a0 - a1*cos(2*pi*n/(N-1))

    return w_Hamming/sqrt(sum(w_Hamming**2)/N)

• In order to see the importance of window functions, let us take 1 second of the noise of the previous exercise with the distinct sound. Let us add a strong sinusoidal sound with an amplitude of 1 and a frequency close to the initial one (for example shifted by 4.3 Hz). Plot and compare the PSD with and without window.