Power Spectrum and Bandwidth

Ulf Henriksson, 2003

Translated by Mikael Olofsson, 2005

Power Spectrum
Consider a pulse amplitude modulated signal

Y (t) =
n=

An p(t nT ),

where {An } is the sequence that is supposed to be transmitted and where p(t) is a pulse shape on the interval (0, T ). The Fourier transform of p(t) is P (f ). Suppose that {An } is a sequence of independent variables with mean zero and variance 2 A for all n. Then the power spectral density is given by RA (f ) = 1 |P (f )|2 2 . A T

|P (f )| is called the energy spectrum or the Wiener spectrum of the pulse p(t). Thus, with the given properties of {An }, the power spectral density of the signal has the same shape as the energy spectrum of the pulse. The power spectral density represents the distribution of the signal power over the frequency interval (, ), i.e. over both positive and negative frequencies. The power of the signal in the frequency band (W, W ) is given by
W

PW =
W

RY (f ) df.

The total power of the signal is therefore

P =

RY (f ) df =

2 A T

|P (f )|2 df =

2 A T

p2 (t) dt,
0

where the last equality follows from Parsevals relation. 1

Example 1 A rectangular pulse of duration T : p(t) = The energy spectrum is |P (f )| =

2

1, 0 < t < T, 0, elsewhere.

sin(f T ) f

= T 2 sinc2 (f T ).

The power spectral density has maximum T 2 for f = 0 and zeros for f = n/T , where n A is a non-zero integer.

Example 2 A rectangular pulse of duration T /2: p(t) = The energy spectrum is |P (f )| =

2

1, 0 < t < T /2, 0, elsewhere.

sin(f T /2) f

T2 sinc2 (f T /2). 4

The power spectral density has maximum T 2 /4 for f = 0 and zeros for f = 2n/T , where A n is a non-zero integer.

Example 3 A modulated pulse with carrier frequency fc = 1/T and of duration T : p(t) = The energy spectrum is 1 |P (f )| = 4
2

cos(2fc t), 0 < t < T, 0, elsewhere.

sin((f fc )T ) (f fc )

1 + 4

sin((f + fc )T ) (f + fc )

= T 2 sinc2 (f T ).

The power spectral density has maximum T 2 /4 for f = fc and zeros for f fc = n/T , A where n is a non-zero integer, i.e. on distance n/T around the carrier frequency. 2

Bandwidth
The bandwidth of a signal is understood to be the frequency interval where the main part of its power is located. One direct denition of bandwidth could therefore be the following. Denition 1 The bandwidth B of a signal is the width of the frequency band in which 95% (or 99%, 90%, and so on) of its power is located. For the signal in Example 1 above, we have the following relation for the 95% bandwidth B:
B

T 2 sinc2 (f T ) A
B

df = 0.95

T 2 sinc2 (f T ) df A

Note that the power spectral density is integrated from B to B. The bandwidth only includes positive frequencies. A more simple, but less sharp, denition of bandwidth for baseband signals (i.e. nonmodulated signals) is the following. Denition 2 The bandwidth B of a non-modulated signal is the smallest positive frequency, for which its power spectral density is zero. For the rectangular signal of duration T in Example 1, the rst zero of the power spectral density is at f = 1/T . Using Denition 2, the bandwidth of the signal is therefore B = 1/T . Using the same denition, the bandwidth of the rectangular signal of duration T /2 in Example 2 is 2/T . For a modulated signal, such as in Example 3, the power spectral density is concentrated around the frequencies fc . The bandwidth, that still contains only positive frequencies, can then be dened as follows. Denition 3 The bandwidth B of a modulated signal is the distance between the two zeros of the power spectral density directly below and above the carrier frequency fc . The bandwidth of the modulated signal in Example 3 is therefore 2/T .