A signal defined in such domain is called sequence, and it is indicated by (

) (or x: ;, or  ), where
the generic -th element is associated to the correspondent % = ·T time. Therefore, the whole
signal can be characterized only by its values and the sampling interval ). A sequence is real if all its
values belong to the set of real numbers, or complex in case of complex values.

In Matlab, we will work with matrixes with finite elements, in the digital domain2. For this reason, all
signals dealt with are sequences. The main difference is that:

- if the signal is “real”, it will have a domain with many packed values, typically with a small step
(such as …, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04… obtained for instance by x=[-5:.01:3] command) and the
plot function will be used to graph that signal; the domain will represent the corresponding
true values of the signal;
- if the signal is a sequence, it will have a domain with integer values (such as … -1, 0, 1, 2 …

to graph that signal. To perform signal elaboration the ) interval shall be known and it is not
obtained for instance with the command n=[-2:4] ) and the stem function will be used

part of the samples or the plot itself (although several digital processing methods or
operations do not require such information).

It is possible to apply to sequences a wide set of operations, from scaling to shifting, conjugation or
flipping by working on a sample-per-sample basis. This will be applicable to both “real” signals and
“numeric” signals due to the Matlab processing applied only to sequences, as explained above. Before
proceeding with the description of these (and other) operations, it is necessary first to recall some key
concepts in discrete-time signals.

First off, the unitary sample (Dirac pulse), which is defined as:

1, # = 0
P( ) = Q
0, ∀ ≠ 0

Next, the definition of the process of extraction, or sampling. Starting from a continuous signal (%),
given a sampling step of ), it is possible to extract a set of samples ab = (c)). All these samples
will form the discrete sequence b = ab .

The formal definition of a discrete signal extracted from a continuous signal with a sampling step of )

Shannon sampling theorem. By defining an infinite set of shifted unitary pulses P( ), we introduce
is the following, and it is useful as starting point for the theoretical demonstrations of the Nyquist–

the bilateral sequence for all values of c ∈ ℤ:

( ) = e (c)) ∙ P( − c) = e b ∙ P( − c)
b b

In case the samples are zero for each c smaller than c m and greater than cf > ch , we have a finite
sequence which can be represented with a finite array of values.

Finally, we define periodical discrete signals all infinite sequences which satisfy the equivalence:

( − ℎi ) = ( )

2
This assumption is not valid for the Symbolic toolbox which is addressed in the second part of the booklet.