Category: Signal Modeling

Cyclostationarity of Frequency-Shift-Keyed Signals

The cyclostationarity of frequency-shift-keyed signals depends strongly on the way the carrier phase evolves over time. Many distinct cycle-frequency patterns and spectral correlation shapes are possible.

Let’s get back to basics by looking at a large class of signals known as frequency-shift-keyed (FSK) signals. We will leave to the side, for the most part, the very large class of signals that goes by the name of continuous-phase modulation (CPM), which includes continuous-phase FSK (CPFSK), MSK, GMSK, and many more (The Literature [R188]-[R190]). Those are treated in My Papers [8], and in a future CSP Blog post.

Here we want to look at more conventional forms of FSK. These signal types don’t necessarily have a continuous phase function. They are generally easier to demodulate and are more robust to noise and interference than the more complicated CPM signal types, but generally have much lower spectral efficiency. They are like the rectangular-pulse PSK of the FSK/CPM world. But they are still used.

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SPTK Addendum: Problems with resampling using MATLAB’s resample.m

Sometimes MATLAB’s resample.m gives results that can be trouble for subsequent CSP.

Previous SPTK Post: Echo Detection Next SPTK Post: The Laplace Transform

In this brief Signal Processing Toolkit note, I warn you about relying on resample.m to increase the sampling rate of your data. It works fine a lot of the time, but when the signal has significant energy near the band edges, it does not.

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SPTK: Sampling and The Sampling Theorem

The basics of how to convert a continuous-time signal into a discrete-time signal without losing information in the process. Plus, how the choice of sampling rate influences CSP.

Previous SPTK Post: Random Processes Next SPTK Post: Echo Detection

In this Signal Processing ToolKit post we take a close look at the basic sampling theorem used daily by signal-processing engineers. Application of the sampling theorem is a way to choose a sampling rate for converting an analog continuous-time signal to a digital discrete-time signal. The former is ubiquitous in the physical world–for example all the radio-frequency signals whizzing around in the air and through your body right now. The latter is ubiquitous in the computing-device world–for example all those digital-audio files on your Discman Itunes Ipod DVD Smartphone Cloud Neuralink Singularity.

So how are those physical real-world analog signals converted to convenient lists of finite-precision numbers that we can apply arithmetic to? For that’s all [digital or cyclostationary] signal processing is at bottom: arithmetic. You might know the basic rule-of-thumb for choosing a sampling rate: Make sure it is at least twice as big as the largest frequency component in the analog signal undergoing the sampling. But why, exactly, and what does ‘largest frequency component’ mean?

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Comments on “Proper Definition and Handling of Dirac Delta Functions” by C. Candan.

An interesting paper on the true nature of the impulse function we use so much in signal processing.

The impulse function, also called the Dirac delta function, is commonly used in statistical signal processing, and on the CSP Blog (examples: representations and transforms). I think we’re a bit casual about this usage, and perhaps none of us understand impulses as well as we might.

Enter C. Candan and The Literature [R155].

Continue reading “Comments on “Proper Definition and Handling of Dirac Delta Functions” by C. Candan.”

SPTK (and CSP): Random Processes

The merging of conventional probability theory with signal theory leads to random processes, also known as stochastic processes. The ideas involved with random processes are central to cyclostationary signal processing.

Previous SPTK Post: Examples of Random Variables Next SPTK Post: The Sampling Theorem

In this Signal Processing ToolKit post, I provide an introduction to the concept and use of random processes (also called stochastic processes). This is my perspective on random processes, so although I’ll introduce and use the conventional concepts of stationarity and ergodicity, I’ll end up focusing on the differences between stationary and cyclostationary random processes. The goal is to illustrate those differences with informative graphics and videos; to build intuition in the reader about how the cyclostationarity property comes about, and about how the property relates to the more abstract mathematical object of a random process on one hand and to the concrete data-centric signal on the other.

So … this is the first SPTK post that is also a CSP post.

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The Signal-Processing Equivalent of Resume-Padding? Comments on “A Robust Modulation Classification Method Using Convolutional Neural Networks” by S. Zhou et al.

Does the use of ‘total SNR’ mislead when the fractional bandwidth is very small? What constitutes ‘weak-signal processing?’

Or maybe “Comments on” here should be “Questions on.”

In a recent paper in EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (The Literature [R165]), the authors tackle the problem of machine-learning-based modulation recognition for highly oversampled rectangular-pulse digital signals. They don’t use the DeepSig datasets (one, two, three, four), but their dataset description and use of ‘signal-to-noise ratio’ leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s take a brief look. See if you agree with me that the touting of their results as evidence that they can reliably classify signals with ‘SNRs of -10 dB’ is unwarranted and misleading.

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SPTK: Examples of Random Variables in Communication-Signal Contexts

Some examples of random variables encountered in communication systems, channels, and mathematical models.

Previous SPTK Post: Random Variables Next SPTK Post: Random Processes

In this Signal Processing ToolKit post, we continue our exploration of random variables. Here we look at specific examples of random variables, which means that we focus on concrete well-defined cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) and probability density functions (PDFs). Along the way, we show how to use some of MATLAB’s many random-number generators, which are functions that produce one or more instances of a random variable with a specified PDF.

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SPTK: Random Variables

Our toolkit expands to include basic probability theory.

Previous SPTK Post: Complex Envelopes Next SPTK Post: Examples of Random Variables

In this Signal Processing ToolKit post, we examine the concept of a random variable.

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SPTK: The Analytic Signal and Complex Envelope

In signal processing, and in CSP, we often have to convert real-valued data into complex-valued data and vice versa. Real-valued data is in the real world, but complex-valued data is easier to process due to the use of a substantially lower sampling rate.

Previous SPTK Post: The Moving-Average Filter    Next SPTK Post: Random Variables

In this Signal-Processing Toolkit post, we review the signal-processing steps needed to convert a real-valued sampled-data bandpass signal to a complex-valued sampled-data lowpass signal. The former can arise from sampling a signal that has been downconverted from its radio-frequency spectral band to a much lower intermediate-frequency spectral band. So we want to convert such data to complex samples at zero frequency (‘complex baseband’) so we can decimate them and thereby match the sample rate to the signal’s baseband bandwidth. Subsequent signal-processing algorithms (including CSP of course) can then operate on the relatively low-rate complex-envelope data, which is beneficial because the same number of seconds of data can be processed using fewer samples, and computational cost is determined by the number of samples, not the number of seconds.

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SPTK: The Moving-Average Filter

A simple and useful example of a linear time-invariant system. Good for smoothing and discovering trends by averaging away noise.

Previous SPTK Post: Ideal Filters             Next SPTK Post: The Complex Envelope

We continue our basic signal-processing posts with one on the moving-average, or smoothing, filter. The moving-average filter is a linear time-invariant operation that is widely used to mitigate the effects of additive noise and other random disturbances from a presumably well-behaved signal. For example, a physical phenomenon may be producing a signal that increases monotonically over time, but our measurement of that signal is corrupted by noise, interference, or flaws in the measurement process. The moving-average filter can reveal the sought-after trend by suppressing the effects of the unwanted disturbances.

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SPTK: Ideal Filters

Ideal filters have rectangular or unit-step-like transfer functions and so are not physical. But they permit much insight into the analysis and design of real-world linear systems.

Previous SPTK Post: Convolution       Next SPTK Post: The Moving-Average Filter

We continue with our non-CSP signal-processing tool-kit series with this post on ideal filtering. Ideal filters are those filters with transfer functions that are rectangular, step-function-like, or combinations of rectangles and step functions.

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Spectral Correlation and Cyclic Correlation Plots for Real-Valued Signals

Spectral correlation surfaces for real-valued and complex-valued versions of the same signal look quite different.

In the real world, the electromagnetic field is a multi-dimensional time-varying real-valued function (volts/meter or newtons/coulomb). But in mathematical physics and signal processing, we often use complex-valued representations of the field, or of quantities derived from it, to facilitate our mathematics or make the signal processing more compact and efficient.

So throughout the CSP Blog I’ve focused almost exclusively on complex-valued signals and data. However, there is a considerable older literature that uses real-valued signals, such as The Literature [R1, R151]. You can use either real-valued or complex-valued signal representations and data, as you prefer, but there are advantages and disadvantages to each choice. Moreover, an author might not be perfectly clear about which one is used, especially when presenting a spectral correlation surface (as opposed to a sequence of equations, where things are often more clear).

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SPTK: Convolution and the Convolution Theorem

Convolution is an essential element in everyone’s signal-processing toolkit. We’ll look at it in detail in this post.

Previous SPTK Post: Interconnection of Linear Systems      Next SPTK Post: Ideal Filters

This installment of the Signal Processing Toolkit series of CSP Blog posts deals with the ubiquitous signal-processing operation known as convolution. We originally came across it in the context of linear time-invariant systems. In this post, we focus on the mechanics of computing convolutions and discuss their utility in signal processing and CSP.

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Are Probability Density Functions “Engineered” or “Hand-Crafted” Features?

The Machine Learners think that their “feature engineering” (rooting around in voluminous data) is the same as “features” in mathematically derived signal-processing algorithms. I take a lighthearted look.

One of the things the machine learners never tire of saying is that their neural-network approach to classification is superior to previous methods because, in part, those older methods use hand-crafted features. They put it in different ways, but somewhere in the introductory section of a machine-learning modulation-recognition paper (ML/MR), you’ll likely see the claim. You can look through the ML/MR papers I’ve cited in The Literature ([R133]-[R146]) if you are curious, but I’ll extract a couple here just to illustrate the idea.

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Stationary Signal Models Versus Cyclostationary Signal Models

What happens when a cyclostationary time-series is treated as if it were stationary?

In this post let’s consider the difference between modeling a communication signal as stationary or as cyclostationary.

There are two contexts for this kind of issue. The first is when someone recognizes that a particular signal model is cyclostationary, and then takes some action to render it stationary (sometimes called ‘stationarizing the signal’). They then proceed with their analysis or algorithm development using the stationary signal model. The second context is when someone applies stationary-signal processing to a cyclostationary signal model, either without knowing that the signal is cyclostationary, or perhaps knowing but not caring.

At the center of this topic is the difference between the mathematical object known as a random process (or stochastic process) and the mathematical object that is a single infinite-time function (or signal or time-series).

A related paper is The Literature [R68], which discusses the pitfalls of applying tools meant for stationary signals to the samples of cyclostationary signals.

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DeepSig’s 2018 Dataset: 2018.01.OSC.0001_1024x2M.h5.tar.gz

The third DeepSig dataset I’ve examined. It’s better!

Update February 2021. I added material relating to the DeepSig-claimed variation of the roll-off parameter in a square-root raised-cosine pulse-shaping function. It does not appear that the roll-off was actually varied as stated in Table I of [R137].

DeepSig’s datasets are popular in the machine-learning modulation-recognition community, and in that community there are many claims that the deep neural networks are vastly outperforming any expertly hand-crafted tired old conventional method you care to name (none are usually named though). So I’ve been looking under the hood at these datasets to see what the machine learners think of as high-quality inputs that lead to disruptive upending of the sclerotic mod-rec establishment. In previous posts, I’ve looked at two of the most popular DeepSig datasets from 2016 (here and here). In this post, we’ll look at one more and I will then try to get back to the CSP posts.

Let’s take a look at one more DeepSig dataset: 2018.01.OSC.0001_1024x2M.h5.tar.gz.

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More on DeepSig’s RML Datasets

The second DeepSig data set I analyze: SNR problems and strange PSDs.

I presented an analysis of one of DeepSig’s earlier modulation-recognition datasets (RML2016.10a.tar.bz2) in the post on All BPSK Signals. There we saw several flaws in the dataset as well as curiosities. Most notably, the signals in the dataset labeled as analog amplitude-modulated single sideband (AM-SSB) were absent: these signals were only noise. DeepSig has several other datasets on offer at the time of this writing:

In this post, I’ll present a few thoughts and results for the “Larger Version” of RML2016.10a.tar.bz2, which is called RML2016.10b.tar.bz2. This is a good post to offer because it is coherent with the first RML post, but also because more papers are being published that use the RML 10b dataset, and of course more such papers are in review. Maybe the offered analysis here will help reviewers to better understand and critique the machine-learning papers. The latter do not ever contain any side analysis or validation of the RML datasets (let me know if you find one that does in the Comments below), so we can’t rely on the machine learners to assess their inputs. (Update: I analyze a third DeepSig dataset here. And a fourth and final one here.)

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All BPSK Signals

An analysis of DeepSig’s 2016.10A dataset, used in many published machine-learning papers, and detailed comments on quite a few of those papers.

Update March 2021

See my analyses of three other DeepSig datasets here, here, and here.

Update June 2020

I’ll be adding new papers to this post as I find them. At the end of the original post there is a sequence of date-labeled updates that briefly describe the relevant aspects of the newly found papers. Some machine-learning modulation-recognition papers deserve their own post, so check back at the CSP Blog from time-to-time for “Comments On …” posts.

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SPTK: Frequency Response of LTI Systems

The frequency response of a filter tells you how it scales each and every input sine-wave or spectral component.

Previous SPTK Post: LTI Systems             Next SPTK Post: Interconnection of LTI Systems

We continue our progression of Signal-Processing ToolKit posts by looking at the frequency-domain behavior of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems. In the previous post, we established that the time-domain output of an LTI system is completely determined by the input and by the response of the system to an impulse input applied at time zero. This response is called the impulse response and is typically denoted by h(t).

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SPTK: Linear Time-Invariant Systems

LTI systems, or filters, are everywhere in signal processing. They allow us to adjust the amplitudes and phases of spectral components of the input.

Previous SPTK Post: The Fourier Transform         Next SPTK Post: Frequency Response

In this Signal Processing Toolkit post, we’ll take a first look at arguably the most important class of system models: linear time-invariant (LTI) systems.

What do signal processors and engineers mean by system? Most generally, a system is a rule or mapping that associates one or more input signals to one or more output signals. As we did with signals, we discuss here various useful dichotomies that break up the set of all systems into different subsets with important properties–important to mathematical analysis as well as to design and implementation. Then we’ll look at time-domain input/output relationships for linear systems. In a future post we’ll look at the properties of linear systems in the frequency domain.

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