THE SAMPLING THEOREM

1 Abdelhamid DAAMOUCHE,
University of Boumerdes
Spring 2021
adaamouche@univ-boumerdes.dz
INTRODUCTION
The sampling prcess is the generation of discrete-time
signals from continuous-time signals,
T is the sampling period.

xc(t) x[n]= xc(nT)

C/D

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IDEAL SAMPLING
Ideal sampling of a signal xc(t) is accomplished by
multiplying this signal by the ideal periodic impulse
train s(t)

s(t) Conversion
xs(t) from impulse x[n]= xc(nT)
xc(t) train to
discrete-time
sequence
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IDEAL SAMPLING
n
s (t ) (t nT )
n

s(t)
1
t
6T 4T 2T 2T 4T 6T

The signal s(t) is used as a mathematical mean to sample continuous

time signals.

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IDEAL SAMPLING
n
s (t ) (t nT )
n
xs (t ) xc (t ) s (t )
n
xc (t ) (t nT )
n n

xc (nT ) (t nT )
n
In the last line, we used the sifting property of the Dirac function, that
is
x(t ) (t t0 ) x(t0 ) (t t0 )
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IDEAL SAMPLING

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SAMPLING WITH PERIODIC IMPULSE
TRAIN
xc(t)

3T 2T T 0 T 2T 3T 4T
t

x[n]

3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4
n

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FREQUENCY DOMAIN OF THE SAMPLING
PROCESS

Since the sampling operation in the time-domain

is a formal multipication of the continuous time
signal and a unit impulse train, then the
continuous Fourier transform of this operation is
a convolution. (properties of the FT).

FT 1
x1 (t ) x2 (t ) X1( ) X 2 ( )
2

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FREQUENCY DOMAIN OF THE SAMPLING
PROCESS

The Continuous Fourier transform of s(t) is

2 /T
S(j )
3 s 2 s s s 2 s 3 s

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FREQUENCY DOMAIN OF THE SAMPLING
PROCESS

The Fourier transform of xs (t)

1 2
Xs( j ) Xc( j )* ( k s )
2 T k

1
Xc( j kj s )
Tk
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FREQUENCY DOMAIN OF THE SAMPLING
PROCESS

We see that Xs( ) is a peridically repeated copies

of the spectrum, Xc( )/T, of the sampled signal.

Then, we conclude that sampling a continuous

time signal in the time domain results in a
periodic Fourier transform of the sampled signal,
without altering the shape of the Fourier
transform.

The resulting spectrum is scaled by 1/T.

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CASE 1: S> 2 N

Xc(j )
1

N N

2 /T
S(j )
3 s 2 s s s 2 s 3 s

Xs(j )
1/T
12

3 s 2 s s s 2 s 3 s
 CASE 1: S> 2 N
Passing Xs(j ) through a
low-pass filter with cutoff
Xc(j )
frequency N < c< s 1
N , the original signal
can be recovered.
N N

2 /T
S(j )
3 s 2 s s s 2 s 3 s

Xs(j )
1/T
13

3 s 2 s s s 2 s 3 s
Case 2: s< 2 N
Xc(j )
1

N N

2 /T S(j )

6 s 4 s 2 s 2 s 4 s 6 s

1/T Xs(j )
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6 s 4 s 2 s 2 s 4 s 6 s
COMMENTS
In case 2, when the sampling frequency is less
than twice the highest frequency contained by
the sampled signal, the reconstruction of the
original signal is impossible. This phenomena is
known as ALIASING
The sampling theorem, which is usually known
as Shanon’s Theorem, states that any band
limited signal can be fully recovered from its
samples, provided that the sampling rate is at
least equal to twice the highest frequency of the
sampled signal.
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REFERENCES
D. Oppeheim et al. « Discrete-time Signal
Processing », 3rd edition,
https://slideplayer.com/slide/10398185/

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