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EE 438 Digital Signal Processing With Applications: Classification of Signals According To Their Support

This document classifies signals according to their support, or the set of points where the signal is non-zero. It divides signals into two main categories: finite duration signals, which are non-zero over a bounded interval, and infinite duration signals. Infinite duration signals are further broken down into right-sided, left-sided, and two-sided depending on whether the signal is non-zero for all n greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, or both, some integer n. Additionally, signals can be causal if non-zero only for n >= 0 or anti-causal if non-zero only for n <= 0. These properties combine to define eight possible classes of signals.

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40 views

EE 438 Digital Signal Processing With Applications: Classification of Signals According To Their Support

This document classifies signals according to their support, or the set of points where the signal is non-zero. It divides signals into two main categories: finite duration signals, which are non-zero over a bounded interval, and infinite duration signals. Infinite duration signals are further broken down into right-sided, left-sided, and two-sided depending on whether the signal is non-zero for all n greater than or equal to, less than or equal to, or both, some integer n. Additionally, signals can be causal if non-zero only for n >= 0 or anti-causal if non-zero only for n <= 0. These properties combine to define eight possible classes of signals.

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ljjb
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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EE 438 Digital Signal Processing with Applications:

Classification of Signals According to their Support


Prof. Jan P. Allebach
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN 47907-1285
[email protected]

January 20, 1997

1 Introduction
In this note, we categorize signals according to where they are non-zero on the time axis.
The set of points where a signal is non-zero is called its support. This classification could
be done in many different ways. Here we choose a categorization that corresponds to the
convergence properties of the Z transform of the signal, which we will be discussing later in
the course. We consider explicitly only the discrete-time case. Analogous definitions can be
made for the continuous-time case, as well. In this case, we would be considering convergence
properties of the Laplace transform.

2 Finite vs. Infinite Duration Signals


First, we divide all signals into two classes: those that are of finite duration and those
that are of infinite duration. A signal x[n] is of finite duration if there exists two integers
−∞ < N1 ≤ N2 < ∞, such that x[n] 6= 0 only for N1 ≤ n ≤ N2 . Otherwise, it is of infinite
duration.

3 Right-sided, Left-Sided, and Two-Sided Signals


These terms apply only to signals that are of infinite duration. We say that a signal x[n] is
right-sided if there exists an integer N1 such that x[n] 6= 0 only for N1 ≤ n. The signal x[n]
is left-sided if there exists an integer N2 such that x[n] 6= 0 only for n ≤ N2 . If x[n] is of
infinite duration and it is neither right-sided nor left-sided, then it is two-sided.

1
Infinite Duration Finite Duration

Anti-Causal

Causal
Left-Sided Two-Sided Right-Sided

Figure 1: Classification of signal support.

4 Causal and Anti-Causal Signals


These terms apply to both finite and infinite duration signals. A signal x[n] is causal if
x[n] = 0 for all n < 0. It is anti-causal if x[n] = 0 for all n > 0. It follows that if
x[n] is of infinite duration, then causality implies right-sidedness and anti-causality implies
left-sidedness.

5 Summary
The Venn diagram shown in Fig. 1 above summarizes the relation between the three different
types of descriptors defined in Secs. 2 - 4 above. We see that they combine to produce 8
different cases. As a simple exercise, the reader may wish to sketch an example of each type
of signal.

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