SIGNAL ANALYSIS

S5
The Study involves:

• Transforming physical or engineering quantities

into electrical signals

• Processing and Analysing these signals in Time

Domain and Frequency Domain

54 2
 SENSORS
TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
DATA
ANTI-ALIASING

ACQUISITION
SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL
WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

DIGITAL SIGNAL ANALYSIS

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 3
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 4
 Accelerometers Microphones Eddy Current Probe

Pressure Transducer Sound Intensity Probe

Thermocouples

Laser Displacement Probe Force Transducers

Strain Gauge

54 5
 Transducers
- transduces information from one form to another
- converts physical signals to electrical signals

• Accelerometer - acceleration
• thermocouple - temperature
• eddy current probe - displacement
• strain gauge - strain
• force transducer - dynamic force
• microphone - sound pressure
• sound intensity probe - sound intensity
• tachometer - rotational speed
• pressure transducer - pressure
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 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 7
 Signal Conditioner & Amplifier

• Powers up the transducer

• Conditions the signal from the transducer into

voltage proportional to the measured physical
quantity

• Amplify the voltage in order to minimise noise

during transmission and error during digitization

54 8
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 9
 Anti-Aliasing Filter
• Minimise aliasing (high frequency appearing as low frequency) S2
using anti-aliasing filter

• Anti-aliasing filters are low-pass filters whose cut-off frequencies

are set at or below one-half of the sampling frequency

• For example, if the sampling frequency is 1000Hz, then it will

require a low-pass filter of cut-off frequency of 500Hz or less

• Anti-aliasing filters are analogue filters and would have to be

applied before A/D conversion.

54 10
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 11
 Sample and Hold

• A circuit which acquires and stores an analogue

voltage on a capacitor for a short period of time

54 12
 Analogue to Digital Converter

• This storage time will allow the continuous

analogue signal to be digitised into discrete
time series digital signal

• The time between two sampling points is called

sampling period Ts and the sampling frequency
fs is the inverse of Ts

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 Sampling Frequency

Amplitude Resolution

54 14
 CONTINUOUS TIME TRACE

CONTINUOUS TIME TRACE BECOMES DISCRETE TIME SERIES

EACH BLOCK OF TIME T CONTAINS n SAMPLES OF x(t)

SAMPLING PERIOD, TS= T/(n)

SAMPLING FREQUENCY, fS= (1)/T

If fS= 1000 samples/secs

no. of SAMPLES n=2000,
54 then BLOCK T = 2secs 15
 Amplitude Resolution

54 16
 Dynamic Range S7

• Defined as the ratio between the largest and

smallest signals that can be analysed at the same
time

• It is effected by a number of components :

• ADC resolution (linearity and bits)

• input amplifier noise floor

• anti-aliasing filter performance

• DSP performance

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 Data Acquisition Unit

Data Communication with PC via USB

54 18
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 19
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 20
 Time Domain
Waveform Analysis
• There are various treatment that can be performed
on the time series including:

– Integration eg. from acceleration to velocity

S4b
– Differentiation
– Band-pass Filtering S5
– Statistical operation eg. RMS, Average, Max, Min,
Std. Deviation, Variance S11
– Arithmetic (adding a number of waveforms)
– Logical (false, true, etc.)
54 21
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 22
 S19
Transforming from
Time Domain To Frequency Domain
• A Signal normally consists of many frequency components
superimposed

• Hence, in many cases cannot be visualise or interpreted

effectively

• There is a requirement to decompose the signal into its

various frequency components

• One common way is to use Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)

to perform this task

54 23
 Fast Fourier Transform
• The algorithm for Fast Fourier Transformation is given by:
N 1 2kr
1
Xk 
N
X e
r 0
r
N

• This algorithm consists of a few lines of programming

• Dedicated FFT chips are also available to speed up the

operation working in the similar concept of math-
coprocessor chip

• It takes in one Time Series Record of say 1024 samples at

a time and transform the signal into a Frequency
Spectrum
54 24
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 25
 Frequency Domain Analysis

• Forward FFT
• Inverse FFT
• Waterfall Spectrum S13
• Colour Intensity Waterfall
Spectrum
• Transfer Function S14
• Coherence
• Auto Power Spectrum
• Cross Power Spectrum
54 26
 TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
ANTI-ALIASING

SAMPLE & HOLD

ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL

WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

WINDOWING

SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 27
 S3
Windowing

• Windowing is a process of ‘forcing’ the end

points of a time frame to zero

• This will get rid of the leakage

54 28
54 29
 Hanning vs Flat Top
S8

• Hanning gives narrow • Flat Top gives broader

band shape but band shape but
maximum amplitude maximum amplitude
errors of 16% error of 1%

54 30
 SENSORS
TRANSDUCERS
DIGITAL
CONDITIONER SIGNAL
& AMPLIFIER PROCESSING
DATA
ANTI-ALIASING

ACQUISITION
SAMPLE & HOLD
USB
COMMUNICATION
ANALOGUE TO
DIGITAL
WAVEFORM
TIME TRACE DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING

DIGITALWINDOWING
SIGNAL ANALYSIS
SPECTRUM
FFT DISPLAY STORE
PROCESSING
54 31
DIGITAL SIGNAL
SENSORS
ANALYSER

DATA
ACQUISITION
UNIT

PC BASED
DIGITAL
SIGNAL
ANALYSIS

54 32
 Thank You

54 33
 ALIASING

54 34
For a simple example, if the data contains data up to a max. of 2Hz, the data need to be
sampled at least 4 times per second, or 4Hz

Max Freq = 2 Hz
Sampling freq = 2 2/3 Hz
fsamp = 1 1/3 fmax

Max Freq = 2 Hz
Sampling freq = 3 Hz
fsamp = 1 ½ fmax

54 35
Max Freq = 2 Hz
Sampling freq = 4Hz
fsamp = 2 fmax

Max Freq = 2 Hz
Sampling freq = 6Hz
fsamp = 3 fmax

54 36
 Anti-Aliasing Filter
• Minimise aliasing using anti-aliasing filter

• Anti-aliasing filters are low-pass filters whose cut-off frequencies

are set at or below one-half of the sampling frequency

• For example, if the sampling frequency is 1000Hz, then it will

require a low-pass filter of cut-off frequency of 500Hz or less

• Anti-aliasing filters are analogue filters and would have to be

applied before A/D conversion.

54 37
 Low Pass Anti-Aliasing Filter

54 38
 Frequency Range, Anti-Aliasing Filter And
Sampling Frequency
• If you need to work on a
signal within a frequency
range of 400Hz

• You need a low pass

anti-aliasing filter of
around 500Hz

• Your sampling frequency

has to be at least 1000Hz
or 1000 sample per
second

54 39
 SAMPLING

54 40
 RESOLUTION 1 bit

54 41
 RESOLUTION 2 bits

54 42
 RESOLUTION 3 bits

54 43
 RESOLUTION 4 bits

A 16-bit ADC will discretise the amplitude range of the

signal to a resolution of 65536 grid
54 44
 Dynamic Range S7

• Defined as the ratio between the largest and

smallest signals that can be analysed at the same
time

• It is effected by a number of components :

• ADC resolution (linearity and bits)

• input amplifier noise floor

• anti-aliasing filter performance

• DSP performance

54 45
 WINDOWING

54 46
 Types Of Windowing Functions

• There are a number of window functions

developed, the common ones are:

• Hanning
• Flat Top
• Exponential

54 47
54 48
54 49
 REALTIME PROCESS

54 50
 Real Time Bandwidth

Real-time operation is where there is no data loss in

54 the processing of raw signal 51
 Overlap Processing

54 52
 Data Reduction - AVERAGING

• Time Domain Averaging • Frequency Domain Averaging

– Eliminate non-synchronous – Does not eliminate non-

components, with trigger synchronous components, with
(S11) or without trigger

– Without trigger, signals are

lost (S10)

– Improves signal to noise – Does not improve signal to noise

ratio (S9) ratio

54 53
 S6
Linear Scale and Logarithmic dB Scale

• Linear scale can be converted to logarithmic

dB scale by:

V
dB  20log 10
Vref

54 54