EECE 301

Signals & Systems

Prof. Mark Fowler
Note Set #13
• C-T Signals: Fourier Transform Properties

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 Fourier Transform Properties
These properties are useful for two main things:
1. They help you apply the table to a wider class of signals
2. They are often the key to understanding how the FT can be used in a given
application.
So… even though these results may at first seem like “just boring math” they are
important tools that let signal processing engineers understand how to build
things like cell phones, radars, mp3 processing, etc.
Here… we will only cover the most important properties.
See the available table for the complete list of properties!
In this note set we simply learn these most-important properties… in the next note
set we’ll see how to use them.

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1. Linearity (Supremely Important) Gets used virtually all the time!!

If x(t )  X ( ) & y (t )  Y ( )

then ax (t )  by (t )  aX ( )  bY ( )

Another way to write this property:

Fax (t )  by (t )  aFx (t ) bFy (t )

Use Defn
 

To see why: F ax (t )  by (t ) 

 jt
ax ( t )  by ( t ) e dt of FT

 
 a  x(t )e  j t
dt  b  y (t )e  jt dt
 
By standard
Property of  X ( )  Y ( )
Integral of sum
of functions By Defn of
FT
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2. Time Shift (Really Important!) Used often to understand practical
issues that arise in audio,
communications, radar, etc.

If x (t )  X ( ) then x (t  c )  X ( )e  jc
Note: If c > 0 then x(t – c) is a delay of x(t)

So… what does this mean??

 jc
First… it does nothing to the magnitude of the FT: X ( )e  X ( )
That means that a shift doesn’t change “how much” we need of each of
the sinusoids we build with
 jc
Second… it does change the phase of the FT: { X ( )e }  X ( )  e  jc

 X ( )  c
Line of slope –c This gets added
Phase shift increases linearly to original phase
as the frequency increases

Shift of Time Signal  “Linear” Phase Shift of Frequency Components

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3. Time Scaling (Important)
Q: If x(t )  X ( ) , then x ( at )  ??? for a0

1  
A: x(at )  X 
a a

If the time signal is Then… The FT is

Time Scaled by a Freq. Scaled by 1/a

An interesting “duality”!!!

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To explore this FT property…first, what does x(at) look like?

x(t )
Original
Signal t
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

x(2t )
Time-Scaled
|a| > 1 “squishes” horizontally
w/ a = 2 3.5 t

1 
x t  |a| < 1 “stretches” horizontally
Time-Scaled 2 
w/ a = 1/2 t

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

|a| > 1 makes it “wiggle” faster  need more high frequencies

|a| < 1 makes it “wiggle” slower  need less high frequencies
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 1  
When |a| > 1  |1/a| < 1 x(at )  X 
a a
Time Signal is Squished FT is Stretched Horizontally
and Reduced Vertically

Original Signal & Its FT

x(t )
A X  
t 

Squished Signal & Its FT

x(2t )
1  
X 
2 2

.5A
t

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When |a| < 1  |1/a| > 1 1  
x(at )  X  
a a
Time Signal is Stretched
FT is Squished Horizontally
and Increased Vertically

x(t ) Original Signal & Its FT

A X  
t 
1 
x t  Stretched Signal & Its FT 2A 2X 2 
2 
t 

Rough Rule of Thumb we can extract from this property:

 Duration   Bandwidth
 Duration   Bandwidth
Very Short Signals tend to take up Wide Bandwidth 8/15
4. Time Reversal (Special case of time scaling: a = –1)

x(t )  X ( )
double conjugate
 
 dt   x(t )e  jt dt
 j (  ) t
Note: X ( )  x(t )e = “No Change”
 

 Conjugate changes to –j
  x(t )e  jt dt


= x(t) if x(t) is real


  x (t )e  jt dt  X ( ) Recall: conjugation
 doesn’t change abs.
value but negates the
angle
So if x(t) is real, then we get the special case:
X ( )  X ( )
x ( t )  X ( )  X ( )  X ( )
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 Essential for understanding
5. Modulation Property Super important!!! practical issues that arise in
communications, radar, etc.
There are two forms of the modulation property…
1. Complex Exponential Modulation … simpler mathematics, doesn’t
directly describe real-world cases
2. Real Sinusoid Modulation… mathematics a bit more complicated,
directly describes real-world cases

Euler’s formula connects the two… so you often can use the Complex
Exponential form to analyze real-world cases

Complex Exponential Modulation Property: x(t )e j0t  X (  0 )

Multiply signal by a Shift the FT
complex sinusoid in frequency

X   F{x (t )e jot }  X   o 
A A

 
o 10/15
Real Sinusoid Modulation
Based on Euler, Linearity property, & the Complex Exp. Modulation Property
Euler’s Formula
1

Fx (t ) cos(0t )  F  x (t )e  x (t )e
j0t  j0t 
 
 2  Linearity of FT
1
   
 F x (t )e j0t  F x (t )e  j0t
2

Comp. Exp. Mod.
 X (  o )  X (  o )
1
2

The Result: x (t ) cos(0t ) 

1
X (  0 )  X (  0 )
2
Shift Down Shift Up

Related Result: x (t ) sin(0t ) 

j
X (  0 )  X (  0 )
2

Exercise: x (t ) cos(0t  0 )  ?? 11/15

Visualizing the Result x (t ) cos(0t ) 
1
X (  0 )  X (  0 )
2
Shift up Shift down

X ( )


Shift Down Shift Up

Fx (t ) cos(0t )


 0 0
Interesting… This tells us how to move a signal’s spectrum up to higher
frequencies without changing the shape of the spectrum!!!
What is that good for??? Well… only high frequencies will radiate from an
antenna and propagate as electromagnetic waves and then induce a signal in a
receiving antenna…. 12/15
6. Convolution Property (The Most Important FT Property!!!)

y (t )   x ( )h(t   )d  Y ( )  X ( ) H ( )


We will not yet discuss the “Convolution” aspect of this now… but we
will talk about it in depth later.
In the next Note Set we will explore the real-world use of the right side
of this result!

7. Parseval’s Theorem (Recall Parseval’s Theorem for FS!)

 1 
 x(t ) dt   X ( ) d
2 2
 2 

Energy computed in time domain Energy computed in frequency domain

2 d
x(t ) dt X ( )
2

2
= energy at time t = energy at freq. 
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 
8. Duality: X ( )   x(t )e  jt dt


x (t ) X ( )
1 
x(t ) 
2 

X ( )e jt d

Both FT & IFT are pretty much the “same machine”: c  f ( )e  j d


So if there is a “time-to-frequency” property we would expect a

virtually similar “frequency-to-time” property

Illustration: Delay Property: x(t  c)  X ( )e  jc

j 0 t
Modulation Property: x(t )e  X (  0 )
Other Dual Properties: (Multiply by tn) vs. (Diff. in time domain)
(Convolution) vs. (Mult. of signals)
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Also, this duality structure gives FT pairs that show duality.
Suppose we have a FT table that a FT Pair A… we can get the dual
Pair B using the general Duality Property:
1. Take the FT side of (known) Pair A and replace  by t and move it
to the time-domain side of the table of the (unknown) Pair B.
2. Take the time-domain side of the (known) Pair A and replace t by
–, multiply by 2, and then move it to the FT side of the table of
the (unknown) Pair B.

Here is an example… We found the FT pair for the pulse signal:

  
p (t )  sinc  
Pair A
 2  
Here we have used the
Step 1 Step 2 fact that p(-) = p()

 t 
Pair B  sinc   2 p ( )
 2 

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