1. APPLICATION of the DFT: Estimation of Frequency Spectrum
Consider a Sinusoid: ?
DFT
we sample
...
and take a finite set of samples (window) ...
Problem: how the DFT is going to look like?

2. Relationship between FT -> DTFT
SAMPLING
It can be shown that and are related as

3. Then let’s see the effect of windowing on the DTFT:

4. samples of Then we can relate DFT and DTFT as follows: In formulas:
with:

5. So if we have a sampled sinusoid at frequency the DFT of a finite length of sequence looks like this:
First we look at the DTFT of the windowed sequence:
one period
one period
one period

6. Then we take samples of the DTFT as
For k=0,…,N-1

7. Consequence: when we take an N-point the DFT of a sinusoid, we have two effects:
Loss of Resolution: the sinusoid is not exactly localized in frequency;
Sidelobes: other frequencies (artifacts) appear.
Example: consider a sinusoid of frequency 2kHz, sampled at 8kHz. Take N=128 points.

8. We have to be careful when we apply the DFT, since we can miss some frequency components. Two typical cases:
Two frequency components and too close to each other , ie with
We can see only one peak since the two main lobes due to the two frequencies merge together

9. One weak component next to a strong component
The weak component is “buried” under the sidelobes of the strong component

10. As seen, there are two main problems when we want to estimate the frequency spectrum using the DFT:
Loss of resolution: a peak of the DFT at an index signifies a sinusoid at a frequency which can be anywhere in the interval
in digital frequency (radians), or
in analog frequency (Hz)
To improve the resolution: use more data points! (ie. larger N)

11. Other problem: artifacts which can hide other frequency components
Other problem: artifacts which can hide other frequency components. To reduce artifacts use different windows.
DFT with Window (Hamming Window):
peak for weaker sinusoid
lower sidelobes
DFT

12. Most used Windows:
Rectangular:
Bartlett:
Hanning:
Hamming:
Blackman: