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Fundamental Period and Frequency

The fundamental period of a signal is the smallest period over which the entire signal repeats. In other words, it's the smallest T0 such that f(t+T0)=f(t) for all t.

The fundamental frequency is ω0=1T0. For a signal that contains multiple frequencies, ω1,ω2,,ωN, the fundamental frequency ω0 is the highest frequency shared by all of the multiple frequencies. In other words, it's the greatest common factor of ω1,ω2,,ωN.

Note that the fundamental frequency is the highest frequency shared by the constituent frequencies. It's not the highest frequency that is present.

All frequencies present in the signal are an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency.

The fundamental wavenumber is k0=2πω0=2πT0.

Example

The plot below shows a signal containing frequencies of 62π Hz and 152π Hz, corresponding to wavenumbers 6 and 15. The fundamental frequency of the signal is the greatest common factor these: ω0=32π Hz. The fundamental period is T0=23π. You can see that the signal repeats every 23π units on the x axis.

Note that each frequency in the signal is an integer multiple of ω0: 62π=2 ω0 and 152π=5 ω0.

Making a finite signal periodic

If f(t) has a bounded domain and is, for example, defined on [0,n1], we can make it periodic with fundamental period n by defining f(t+n)=f(t). So the signal repeats every n units and has a fundamental frequency of 1n.

Then all frequencies in the signal will be non-negative integer multiples of 1n: 0n,1n,2n,3n,

The complex Fourier transform is defined on both positive and negative wavenumbers (and, hence, frequencies), so we consider there to be "negative frequencies" present, too: ,3n,2n,1n,0n,1n,2n,3n,

where the negative frequencies can be thought of as oscillating in the opposite direction. Recall that the positive and negative complex Fourier coefficients form conjugate pairs, each containing half of the energy, so that when added they yield all of the energy as a real value, with no imaginary value.


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