EE301 Signals and Systems Analysis

Lecture 12: Fourier Series and LTI Systems

Credit: Some material in these slides is based on the references shown in the last slide.

Instructor: Dr. Abdulaziz A. Alorf

Department of Electrical Engineering

Qassim University

March 14th , 2025

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Outline

1 Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

2 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra

3 Fourier Series and LTI Systems

4 Filtering

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Outline

1 Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

2 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra

3 Fourier Series and LTI Systems

4 Filtering

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Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

• Symmetry of the signal x(t) in time domain is going to affect the

representation of the signal in the frequency domain where:
- If the signal x(t) is having even symmetry, then only even harmonics will
be considered (i.e., cos (0ω0 t), cos (1ω0 t), cos (2ω0 t), etc.).
- Note that, the zeroth harmonic is considered an even harmonic.
- If the signal x(t) is having odd symmetry, then only odd harmonics will
be considered (i.e., sin (1ω0 t), sin (2ω0 t), etc.).
- If the signal x(t) is half-wave symmetry and even, then only the odd
terms of the even harmonics will be considered (i.e., cos (1ω0 t),
cos (3ω0 t), etc.).
- If the signal x(t) is half-wave symmetry and odd, then only the odd
terms of the odd harmonics will be considered (i.e., sin (1ω0 t), sin (3ω0 t),
etc.).

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Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

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Outline

1 Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

2 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra

3 Fourier Series and LTI Systems

4 Filtering

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Fourier Series and on
A New Perspective Frequency Spectra
Signals: The Frequency Domain
A New Perspective on Signals: The Frequency Domain

The Fourier series provides us with an entirely new way to view signals.
Instead of viewing a signal as having information distributed with respect
to time (i.e., a function whose domain is time), we view a signal as having
information distributed with respect to frequency (i.e., a function whose
domain is frequency).
This so called frequency-domain perspective is of fundamental
importance in engineering.
Many engineering problems can be solved much more easily using the
frequency domain than the time domain.
The Fourier series coefficients of a signal x provide a means to quantify
how much information x has at different frequencies.
The distribution of information in a signal over different frequencies is
referred to as the frequency spectrum of the signal.

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Fourier Series and
Fourier Series andFrequency
FrequencySpectra
Spectra

To gain further insight into the role played by the Fourier series coefficients
ck in the context of the frequency spectrum of the signal x, it is helpful to
write the Fourier series with the ck expressed in polar form as follows:
∞ ∞
x(t) = ∑ ck e jkω0t = ∑ |ck | e j(kω0t+arg ck ) .
k=−∞ k=−∞

Clearly, the kth term in the summation corresponds to a complex sinusoid

with fundamental frequency kω0 that has been amplitude scaled by a
factor of |ck | and time-shifted by an amount that depends on arg ck .
For a given k, the larger |ck | is, the larger is the amplitude of its
corresponding complex sinusoid e jkω0t , and therefore the larger the
contribution the kth term (which is associated with frequency kω0 ) will
make to the overall summation.
In this way, we can use |ck | as a measure of how much information a
signal x has at the frequency kω0 .

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 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra (Continued)
Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra
The Fourier series coefficients ck are referred to as the frequency
spectrum of x.
The magnitudes |ck | of the Fourier series coefficients are referred to as
the magnitude spectrum of x.
The arguments arg ck of the Fourier series coefficients are referred to as
the phase spectrum of x.
Normally, the spectrum of a signal is plotted against frequency kω0
instead of k.
Since the Fourier series only has frequency components at integer
multiples of the fundamental frequency, the frequency spectrum is
discrete in the independent variable (i.e., frequency).
Due to the general appearance of frequency-spectrum plot (i.e., a number
of vertical lines at various frequencies), we refer to such spectra as line
spectra.

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Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra
Frequency
Frequency Spectra
Spectra of of
Real Signals Real Signals

Recall that, for a real signal x, the Fourier series coefficient sequence c
satisfies

ck = c∗−k

(i.e., c is conjugate symmetric), which is equivalent to

|ck | = |c−k | and arg ck = − arg c−k .

Since |ck | = |c−k |, the magnitude spectrum of a real signal is always even.
Similarly, since arg ck = − arg c−k , the phase spectrum of a real signal is
always odd.
Due to the symmetry in the frequency spectra of real signals, we typically
ignore negative frequencies when dealing with such signals.
In the case of signals that are complex but not real, frequency spectra do
not possess the above symmetry, and negative frequencies become
important.
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Outline

1 Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

2 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra

3 Fourier Series and LTI Systems

4 Filtering

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 Fourier Series and LTI Systems
Frequency Response
Frequency Response

Recall that an LTI system S with impulse response h is such that

R
S{est}= H(s ) est, where H(s) = −∞ ∞ h( t)e−stdt. (That is, complex
exponentials are eigenfunctions of LTI systems.)
Since a complex sinusoid is a special case of a complex exponential, we
can reuse the above result for the special case of complex sinusoids.
For an LTI system S with impulse response h and a complex sinusoid
ejωt (where ω is a real constant),
S{ejωt}= H(jω)ejωt,
where
Z ∞
H( jω) = h(t)e− jωt dt.
−∞

That is, ejωt is an eigenfunction of an LTI system and H(jω) is the

corresponding eigenvalue.
We refer to H(jω) as the frequency response of the system S.
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Fourier Series
Fourier Seriesand
andLTI
LTISystems
Systems

Consider an LTI system with input x, output y, and frequency response

H(jω).
Suppose that the T-periodic input x is expressed as the Fourier series
∞
x(t) = ∑ ck e jkω0 t , where ω0 = 2π/T .
k=−∞

Using our knowledge about the eigenfunctions of LTI systems, we can

conclude
∞
y(t) = ∑ ck H( jkω0)e jkω t .
k=−∞
0

Thus, if the input x to an LTI system is a Fourier series, the output y is also a
CTFS CTFS
Fourier series. More specifically, if x(t) ←→ ck then y(t) ←→ H( jkω0 )ck .
The above formula can be used to determine the output of an LTI system
from its input in a way that does not require convolution.

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Outline

1 Effect of Symmetry on Fourier Series Representation

2 Fourier Series and Frequency Spectra

3 Fourier Series and LTI Systems

4 Filtering

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 Filtering
Filtering

In many applications, we want to modify the spectrum of a signal by

either amplifying or attenuating certain frequency components.
This process of modifying the frequency spectrum of a signal is called
filtering.
A system that performs a filtering operation is called a filter.
Many types of filters exist.
Frequency selective filters pass some frequencies with little or no
distortion, while significantly attenuating other frequencies.
Several basic types of frequency-selective filters include: lowpass,
highpass, and bandpass.

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Filtering
Ideal Lowpass Filter
Ideal Lowpass Filter

An ideal lowpass filter eliminates all frequency components with a

frequency whose magnitude is greater than some cutoff frequency, while
leaving the remaining frequency components unaffected.
Such a filter has a frequency response of the form
(
1 for |ω| ≤ ωc
H( jω) =
0 otherwise,
where ωc is the cutoff frequency.
A plot of this frequency response is given below.

H( jω)

ω
−ωc ωc

Stopband Passband Stopband

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 Filtering
Ideal Highpass Filter
Ideal Highpass Filter

An ideal highpass filter eliminates all frequency components with a

frequency whose magnitude is less than some cutoff frequency, while
leaving the remaining frequency components unaffected.
Such a filter has a frequency response of the form
(
1 for |ω| ≥ ωc
H( jω) =
0 otherwise,
where ωc is the cutoff frequency.
A plot of this frequency response is given below.

H( jω)

1
··· ···

ω
−ωc ωc

Passband Stopband Passband

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 Filtering
Ideal Bandpass Filter
Ideal Bandpass Filter

An ideal bandpass filter eliminates all frequency components with a

frequency whose magnitude does not lie in a particular range, while
leaving the remaining frequency components unaffected.
Such a filter has a frequency response of the form
(
1 for ωc1 ≤ |ω| ≤ ωc2
H( jω) =
0 otherwise,
where the limits of the passband are ωc1 and ωc2 .
A plot of this frequency response is given below.

H( jω)

ω
−ωc2 −ωc1 ωc1 ωc2

Stopband Passband Stopband Passband Stopband

EE301 Signals andcSystems

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The End

Any questions?

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References

B.P. Lathi. Modern Digital and Analog Communication Systems, 3rd ed. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 2009.
Sanjay Sharma. Signals and Systems, 6th ed. S.K. Kataria & Sons, Delhi, 2008.

Alan V. Oppenheim, Alan S. Willsky, and S. Hamid Nawab. Signals and

Systems, 2nd ed. Pearson, London, 1996.
Simon Haykin and Barry Van Veen. Signals and Systems, 2nd ed. Wiley,
Hoboken, 2002.
Michael D. Adams. Signals and Systems, 3rd ed. University of Victoria,
Victoria, 2020.

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