"viswanath" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected] om...
> Hi,
> I have a question regarding mixing discrete sine waves. If you have
> two sine waves sin(w1*t) and sin(w2*t) and they are sampled at the
> same rate. If you are mixing them in a receiver operation, we are
> supposed to get at the output of the mixer the sum and difference of
> frequencies. But it is just the values that we are multiplying isn't
> it, at the sampled time instants?
> How do we end up getting a difference frequencies and sum frequencies
> which have to be low pass filtered?
> I have read from trigonometry and analog communications but somehow I
> am missing some essence here. Could you please let me know how the
> above is possible?
Is it possible that you are really concerned about various kinds of
aliasing?
Let's take a simple case:
sin(2*pi*100*t) and sin(2*pi*120*t)
We will assume that these are sampled at 300Hz (which is 2.5 times 240Hz
which is 2 times 120Hz, the highest frequency component. The sample
interval is then T=1/300 seconds.
We will assume that the record of samples of temporal length NT encompasses
some integral number of seconds NT so that N must be some integral multiple
of 300. This way we can assume that the record of N samples is a single
period of a periodic waveform with no transients at the edges. That way we
don't have to worry about frequency components that approach 2 times 120Hz -
240Hz, the Nyquist limit for the highest frequency component.
The original 100Hz waveform has components at +/-100Hz and repeats at
+/-200Hz and +/-400Hz (mirrored around +/-300Hz), etc. ad infinitum.
The original 120Hz waveform has components at +/-120Hz and repeats at
+/-180Hz and +/-420Hz (mirrored around +/-300Hz), etc. ad infinitum.
So, there are already components at sum and difference frequencies of the
original sinusoids and the sample rate - before any mixing is done.
We note that this spectrum is periodic at 300Hz.
Because the time record is discrete, it implies the spectrum is periodic as
above. So, if you choose to conveniently show only one period of the
spectrum as would be done with a DFT pair then the 200Hz component and
the -100Hz component are coincident and you don't see any of the higher
frequencies. You only see them if you plot the peridic spectrum
from -infinity to +infinity or if you plot the periodic spectrum in a
"super" period say from zero to 3000Hz where 10 periods of the spectrum are
shown. This changes nothing, it's just how you decide to look at it.
OK.
Now we will conceptually prepare to "mix", i.e. multiply, the two records of
samples together.
We note that multiplying in time is equivalent to convolving in frequency.
Let us assume that we are starting with N samples in time and, thus, N
samples in frequency over a single spectral period.
In order to do a circular convolution in frequency without overlap, the
frequency samples need to be zero-extended so there are 2*N samples.
This means adding 300 zeros from where the existing samples lie at 150Hz to
450Hz which has the effect of increasing the spectral period. The temporal
sample rate thus changes to 600Hz and there are 2x the number of samples.
There remain to be N*T seconds in the temporal record.
Now the spectra have terms at 100 and 500Hz (-100Hz) and at 120 and 480Hz
(-120Hz).
When the circular frequency convolution is done, you get spectral components
at:
20Hz = 120 - 100,
220Hz = 120 + 100,
380Hz = 480 - 100,
580Hz = 480 + 100
Had the zero-extension from 150 to 450Hz not been done, the components at
380Hz and 580Hz would be aliased such that there would only be terms at:
20Hz, 80Hz, 220Hz and 280Hz.
20Hz = 120 - 100 as before
80Hz = 180 - 100 which is an aliased version of the 380Hz term
220Hz = 120 + 100 as before
280Hz = 180 + 100 which is an aliased version of the 580Hz term
So, in order to multiply two temporal records, it appears that you need to
increase the sample rate by a factor of 2 before you do it. Or maybe the
rule is more complicated but I don't see that right now.
Fred