Impulse and

Frequency Response

Dr Mohamed Seghier
Introduction
The impulse response and frequency response are two attributes that are useful for
characterizing linear time-invariant (LTI) systems.

➔ the system H maps its input signal x(t) to a

corresponding output signal y(t)
The system H is linear, so it obeys the principle of superposition.

The system H is time-invariant, so its characteristics do not change with time.

➔ the relationship between the input function x(t) and

the output function y(t) is constant with respect to time t
Impulse Response:
The impulse = a short-duration time-domain signal.
For continuous-time systems, impulse = the Dirac delta function δ(t),
For discrete-time systems, impulse = the Kronecker delta function δ[n].

A system's impulse response (h(t) for continuous-time systems or h[n] for

discrete-time systems) is defined as the output signal that results when an
impulse is applied to the system input.

➔ Knowing h(t) allows us to predict what the system's output will look like in the
time domain.
Because of the linearity and time-invariance properties:
➔ If we can decompose the system's input signal into a sum of a bunch of components,
then the output is equal to the sum of the system outputs for each of those components.

For discrete-time systems

signal x[n] as a sum of scaled and time-shifted Kronecker delta functions:

Therefore:

where h[n] is the system's impulse response.

This equation is the convolution theorem for discrete-time LTI systems.

Example:
Impulse response of a lowpass elliptic filter

https://www.mathworks.com/help/dsp/ref/dsp.allpassfilter.impz.html
Convolution theorem
Convolution theorem is used to calculate a system’s output:
➔ for any signal x[n] that is input to an LTI system, the system's output
y[n] is equal to the discrete convolution of the input signal and the
system's impulse response.
A similar convolution theorem holds for continuous-time systems:
In summary:
For both discrete- and continuous-time systems, the impulse
response is useful because it allows us to calculate the output
of these systems for any input signal; the output is simply the
input signal convolved with the impulse response function.
Properties
The most important properties of a system are causality and stability

Causality
A system is causal if the output depends only on present and past, but not future inputs.

where h(t) is the impulse response.

Stability
A system is bounded-input, bounded-output stable (BIBO stable) if, for every bounded
input, the output is finite.

This implies that:

Example:
Graphical solution
 n=-3:7;
x=0.55.^(n+3);
h=[1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1];
y=conv(x,h);
tint = 0; subplot(311) stem(x)
tfinal = 0.05; title(‘Original signal’)
tstep = 0.0005; subplot(312) stem(h) % Use stem for discrete sequences
t = tint : tstep : tfinal; title(‘Impulse response / second signal’)
x = 4 * square( 500*t, 50 ); %Use a function of your choice here. subplot(313) stem(y)
subplot( 3, 1, 1); plot( t, x); title(‘ convolution result’)
h = 400 * exp( (-400*t) ); %Use a function of your choice.
subplot( 3, 1, 2);
plot( t, h);
t2 = 2*tint : tstep : tfinal*2; % a wider range to be plotted completely.
y = conv( x, h) * tstep;
subplot( 3, 1, 3); plot( t2, y);

© 2015 StormsHalted © 2007 Robi Polikar, Rowan University

 Example:
https://dspillustrations.com/pages/posts/misc/convolution-examples-
and-the-convolution-integral.html

Convolution: one function is a triangle, the other is the The convolution of an exponentially decaying impulse with a
exponential impulse switched-on sine wave
Frequency response:
Likewise, a frequency response allows to calculate the effect that a system will
have on an input signal in the frequency domain.

Fourier transform of x(t)

Its inverse:

→ any time-domain signal x(t) can be broken up into a linear combination of many
complex exponential functions at varying frequencies

Or in amplitude/phase format

→ if we can decompose our input signal x(t) into a linear combination of a bunch of complex
exponential functions, then we can write the output of the system as the same linear combination of
the system response to those complex exponential functions.
Because: exponential functions are the eigenfunctions of linear time-invariant systems.
→ if you put an exponential function into an LTI system, you get the same exponential function out, scaled by a
(generally complex) value.

➔ These effects on the exponentials' amplitudes and phases, as a

function of frequency, is the system's frequency response H(f).

For an input signal with Fourier transform X(f) passed into system H to yield an output with a Fourier
transform Y(f):

So, if we know a system's frequency response H(f) and the Fourier transform of the signal that we
put into it X(f), then it is straightforward to calculate the Fourier transform of the system's output
H(f): The frequency response shows how much each frequency of the
input is attenuated or amplified by the system.

➔ The frequency response is simply the Fourier transform

of the system's impulse response

the impulse response is useful when operating in the time domain and the frequency response is
useful when analyzing behavior in the frequency domain.
The impulse [input]
In practice, it is not possible to produce a perfect impulse to serve as input for testing
in many biomedical applications.
For example, perfusion imaging: to measure blood flow, blood volume, mean transit time…etc.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmri.20460

(a). The contrast agent reaches the brain,

causing a substantial signal drop in tissue
and arteries (graphed in b), which is in
turn converted into contrast agent
concentration (graphed in c).
Based on the raw images (a), maps of CBV,
CBF, and MTT are formed (d and e).
 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmri.20460

a: The measured tissue concentration time curve (tissue curve) gives rise to various measures of the transit time
that all depend on the local shape of the AIF.
b: Deconvolution of the curves in (a) removes the dependence on the arterial input curve and produces the
deconvolved tissue curve.
Example: https://doi.org/10.3390/app10165525

Perfusion imaging in renal diseases

Deconvolution now refers to the process of "undoing" the effect of an LTI system; i.e. you're
given the signal y(t) and you want to recover the original signal x(t).

Advanced topic: Wiener deconvolution, Blind deconvolution

Example: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diii.2013.08.018

With dynamic CT and MRI, the

signal-time curve obtained within
the renal parenchyma with these
diffusible contrast agents is
characteristic with three
discernible phases:
• a vascular phase with a tight
upslope and an early peak,
• a glomerulotubular phase
with a slow uptake (the agent
being filtered)
• a slowly descending excretory
phase.
Arterial input function (AIF): in order to compensate for the non-instantaneous bolus injected into the
blood, quantification requires an accurate sampling of the vascular phase of the enhancement to measure
the AIF within the suprarenal abdominal aorta

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diii.2013.08.018

The region of interest has to be placed above renal arteries for native kidneys and on the lower aorta for transplanted
kidneys. If positioned too high into the volume, it can be hampered by inflow artifacts.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diii.2013.08.018
 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diii.2013.08.018

Quantification of renal perfusion in a patient with left renal artery stenosis. Signal intensity—time curves show the
asymmetry. By applying a two-compartment model and taking into account the AIF, perfusion maps can be obtained,
which demonstrate the asymmetry of vascularization.
Example: Predict EEG responses to two different types of stimulus/event

https://www.unfoldtoolbox.org/contenttutorials.html
 Example: Creating models (regressors) for brain mapping with fMRI

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/190411911.pdf

input output

Typical (canonical) BOLD impulse response (power spectrum inset).

Voxel-wise time series analysis Look for similarity
(correlation) between each
voxel timeseries and
predicted response:
Predicted response =
convulsion between task
and BOLD impulse response.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278826818_Feature_extraction_and_supervised_learning_on_fMRI_from_practice_to_theory
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.08.018
Example:
Define different types of signals x(t) and impulse responses h(t):
Explore the impact of noise at the input or at the level of the impulse response.

Explore what you can do with conv and deconv in MATLAB