354 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 27, No. 2 / February 2010 Granot et al.

Efficient impulse response reconstruction from the

amplitude spectrum

Er’el Granot,* Shmuel Sternklar, and Yossi Ben-Aderet

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ariel University Center of Samaria, Ariel, Israel
*Corresponding author: erel@ariel.ac.il

Received October 7, 2009; accepted November 19, 2009;

posted December 16, 2009 (Doc. ID 118313); published January 29, 2010
We suggest adopting an efficient digital signal processing algorithm, which includes several fast Fourier trans-
forms, to efficiently reconstruct the impulse response of a diffusive medium from its amplitude spectrum. It is
also demonstrated that the singularities, which appear in the phase spectrum reconstruction, can be easily
eliminated through the implementation of at least two types of data padding. © 2010 Optical Society of
America
OCIS codes: 300.6300, 290.4210, 070.4790.

1. INTRODUCTION
It is well established that, for any causal system, there is
a simple linear relation between the imaginary and real
parts of the spectral response function of the system.
These Kramers–Kronig (KK) relations [1–3] are useful,
for example, for evaluating the refractive index of a me-
dium given its absorption coefficient. However, they can
relate the amplitude spectrum to the phase spectrum of
any transfer function. The phase spectrum reconstruction
is essential, for example, for the reconstruction of the im-
pulse response of the medium, which can be a very pow-
erful tool for the analysis of the medium such as ballistic
imaging.
Recently, the KK relations have been applied to diffu-
sive media [4,5]. These materials are especially interest-
ing, since they are ubiquitous in nature. Furthermore, the
impulse response of a diffusive medium is characterized
by a rapidly varying signal within a slowly varying enve-
lope. While the rapid temporal variations are related to
the microscopic nature of the medium and are very sensi-
tive to the exact location of every scatterer in the medium,
the envelope depends only on the macroscopic parameters
of the medium (e.g., the diffusion coefficient), which in
many applications is the main parameter of interest.
Since the envelope varies slowly in time, its characteris-
tics can be determined in relatively narrow spectral
bands. Moreover, it can be located in almost any narrow
spectral band, i.e., the data on the envelope in some re-
spects repeats itself, and therefore there is no need for a
very broad spectrum to reconstruct the envelope of the
impulse response. The fast signal component of the im-
pulse response (which requires wide spectral range for re-
construction) is irrelevant to the envelope reconstruction
and therefore is not necessary for the diffusion coefficient
calculations.
Many applications were developed to reconstruct the
phase spectrum of a diffusive medium (e.g., for its im-
pulse response reconstruction). Some of them are purely
experimental (such as the spectral ballistic imaging tech-
nique [6–8]); some are totally theoretical, where the phase
spectrum is reconstructed from the amplitude response
[e.g., the KK technique [3,4] or the maximum entropy
method (MEM) [3]], and some are semi-theoretical, where
again the phase spectrum (or, more accurately, the im-
pulse response itself) is reconstructed from the amplitude
spectrum, but an additional reference is needed [as in
spectral optical coherence tomography (SOCT); see, for
example, Ref. [9] and references therein] to extract the
phase.
There are two main drawbacks to the KK method:
1. For perfect reconstruction, the KK method requires
an infinite amplitude spectrum. If the spectrum is finite
the reconstruction will be distorted. This disadvantage is
avoided in SOCT with the additional reference arm.
2. The phase reconstruction requires time-consuming
integrals. Moreover, the integrals are singular and there-
fore complicated for numerical analysis.
The first point is definitely a shortcoming of the tech-
nique; however, as was mentioned above and was demon-
strated elsewhere [4] in the case of a diffusive medium,
the impulse response can be reconstructed from a rela-
tively narrow spectral width. The reference arm, which is
an essential element in SOCT can also be of use in the KK
method, since it emphasizes the interferences (i.e., the
relative phases). The comparison to SOCT is an impor-
tant subject and will be discussed in more detail else-
where.
The main issue of this paper is to address the second
point: that the numerical analysis is more time consum-
ing than, for example, MEM. We will first briefly review
the KK derivation to emphasize this point.
2. KRAMERS–KRONIG METHOD
The impulse response h共t兲 of any causal system must obey
h共t兲 = h共t兲u共t兲,
where

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Granot et al. Vol. 27, No. 2 / February 2010 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 355

u共t兲 = 再 冎 1 t艌0
0 t⬍0
is the Heaviside function.
In the spectral domain the statement of causality is
H共␻兲 = H共␻兲 ⴱ U共␻兲,
where H共␻兲 is the Fourier transform of h共t兲, i.e., it is the
spectral response of the medium, U共␻兲 is the Fourier
transform of u共t兲, and the asterisk stands for a convolu-
tion.
Since U共␻兲 = −Pi / ␻ + ␲␦共␻兲 is the Fourier transform of
the Heaviside function (P stands for the Cauchy’s prin-
ciple value), then by substituting H共␻兲 = RH共␻兲 + iIH共␻兲
(R and I stand for the real and imaginary parts.) into Eq.
(1) and comparing the real and imaginary parts of the
equation, two KK relations emerge:
3. EFFICIENT METHOD WITH FAST
FOURIER TRANSFORMS (FFT)
The impulse response can be derived in an easier manner
than the KK technique described above. In fact, there is
no need to calculate the phase spectrum and only then to
use it to calculate the impulse response from the spectral
共1兲 response. The medium’s response can be evaluated di-
rectly [10].
In general, the impulse response is a real and semi-
infinite function. Moreover, it can be written as a sum of
even and odd functions:
h共t兲 = he共t兲 + ho共t兲, 共7兲
since he共t兲 = 1 / 2关h共t兲 + h共−t兲兴 and ho共t兲 = 1 / 2关h共t兲 − h共−t兲兴.
Moreover, if F兵h共t兲其 = H共␻兲 then F兵he共t兲其 = RH共␻兲 and
F兵ho共t兲其 = IH共␻兲, where F兵其 stands for the Fourier trans-
form.
Since, due to causality,

冕
⬁
1 IH共⍀兲 h共t兲 = 2he共t兲u共t兲, 共8兲
RH共␻兲 = P d⍀ , 共2兲
␲ −⬁
␻−⍀
then

冕 h共t兲 = 2F−1兵RH共␻兲其u共t兲. 共9兲

⬁
1 RH共⍀兲
IH共␻兲 = − P d⍀
␲ −⬁
␻−⍀
These two relations are also known as the Hilbert trans-
form.
Usually, in this form, the KK relations do not help
much, since we know neither the real nor the imaginary
parts of the spectral response.
We can, however, take the logarithm of H共␻兲:
ln H共␻兲 = ln兩H共␻兲兩 + i␪共␻兲,
. 共3兲
Therefore, if we have the real part of the transfer function
(the spectral response function), we simply apply the in-
verse Fourier transform and multiply it by the Heaviside
function. We do not need to first calculate the imaginary
part and then apply the Fourier transform. This means
that we have one less integral to calculate. SOCT is par-
tially based on this logic.
However, except for SOCT, the real part of the transfer
function is usually not measured. It is much more conve-
共4兲 nient to measure its absolute value. Therefore,

and if we notice (we will not prove it here) that if H共␻兲 is F−1兵ln H共␻兲其 = 2F−1兵ln兩H共␻兲兩其u共t兲. 共10兲
the spectral response of a causal system, then ln H共␻兲
= ln兩H共␻兲兩 + i␪共␻兲 is the spectral response of a different sys- By applying the Fourier transform to both sides and cal-
tem, which is causal as well. Then we can apply the KK culating their exponent we obtain
relation to Eq. (4) to obtain the phase spectrum, i.e.,
H共␻兲 = exp
2F兵F−1兵ln兩H共␻兲兩其u共t兲其. 共11兲

冕
⬁
1 ln兩H共⍀兲兩
␪共␻兲 = − P d⍀ . 共5兲 Finally, an additional transform operation gives the im-
␲ −⬁
␻−⍀ pulse response (see also Ref. [11]):

After the phase spectrum is reconstructed then the im-
pulse response can be evaluated by a simple inverse Fou-
rier transform 共F−1兵 其兲:
h共t兲 = F−1兵兩H共␻兲兩exp关i␪共␻兲兴其.
From this algorithm, it seems that for any frequency ␻ we
have to integrate over the entire amplitude spectrum,
carefully avoiding the singularity. This indeed seems to be
a time-consuming process.
However, there is no reason to struggle with the singu-
larities and improper integrals, since in practice, the in-
put data is always discrete and finite. This fact alone can
substantially reduce the calculation time. This well-
known feature forms the basis of digital signal processing
(DSP) techniques, and we adopt it for our application.
h共t兲 = F−1兵exp
2F兵F−1兵ln兩H共␻兲兩其u共t兲其其. 共12兲
Evidently, this is a more complicated expression then
Eq. (6)—it requires three Fourier transforms, i.e., three
infinite integrals, instead of a Hilbert transform and a
共6兲 Fourier transform, i.e., two integrals. However, for dis-
crete signals, the Fourier transform can be replaced with
the FFT technique, which is much faster. Since the mea-
sured spectrum is always discrete and always finite, it is
suitable for DSP analysis.
We now derive the discrete form for Eq. (12). For dis-
crete signals, time is a dimensionless integer n, and the
system response to a discrete delta function is [10]
h共n兲 = he共n兲u共n兲, 共13兲
where
356 J. Opt. Soc. Am. B / Vol. 27, No. 2 / February 2010 Granot et al.

冦 冧
1 n = 0,N/2
1
u共n兲 = 2 n = 1,2, . . . 共N/2兲 − 1 . 共14兲 0.8
共N/2兲 + 1, . . . N − 1

I(t)
0 0.6
0.4
If h共n兲 is a real finite sequence it can be written as a 0.2
sum of even he共n兲 and odd ho共n兲 sequences (in the positive 0
n side they must be almost equal since they must elimi- 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
t [ps]
nate each other on the negative side. I stress that they are
almost the same, since this claim is not valid for n = 0 and
1 1
n = N / 2); moreover, the FFT of the even function is equal
to the real part of the transfer function: 0.8 0.8

I(t)

I(t)
0.6 0.6
1 N−1
N兺
0.4 0.4
he共n兲 = RH共k兲exp共2␲ikn/N兲 = IFFT兵RH共k兲其.
0.2 0.2
k=0
0 0
共15兲 14 16 18 20
t [ps]
22 24 35 40
t [ps]
45

Therefore, taking the inverse FFT of the real part of
the transfer function and then setting the entire negative
part to zero will result in the impulse response.
关IFFT兵ln兩H共␻k兲兩其u共n兲兴 = IFFT兵ln H共␻k兲其,
therefore
H共␻k兲 = exp共FFT关IFFT兵ln兩H共␻k兲兩其u共n兲兴兲
and
h共tn兲 = IFFT兵H共␻k兲其
= IFFT兵exp共FFT关IFFT兵ln兩H共␻k兲兩其u共n兲兴兲其. 共18兲
Since each FFT (or IFFT) takes N log2 N multiplications,
the total number of multiplications is approximately
3N log2 N, with an additional N calculations of a loga-
rithm and exponent.
One of the powerful features of this formula is that it
does not require dimensional analysis. It is totally inde-
pendent of the units in which the spectrum was mea-
sured. The only thing that has to be scaled is the final
time.
4. SIMULATION
To complete the picture we present a simulation, which
follows [4]. The simulation consists of 2000 delta function
scatterers, where the mean distance between two adja-
Fig. 1. A comparison between the reconstructed impulse re-
sponse (solid curve) and the exact impulse response (dashed
curve) of a simulation of a diffusive medium. The lower two fig-
ures are a zoom-in of the upper one.
共16兲
cent scatterers is a = 2.5 ␮m, and their mean strength is
␣ = 0.015 ␮m−1. The spectral bandwidth for this medium
is 1 ␮m ± 3 nm 共 ⬃ 900 GHz兲.
共17兲
In Fig. 1 the comparison between the reconstructed
[Eq. (18)] impulse response (or, more accurately, the
square of its absolute value) I共t兲 = 兩h共t兲兩2 and the exact so-
lution is presented. As can be seen, except for small dis-
crepancies, the two are very similar. As we pointed out
above, the envelope of the signal is significant (e.g., imag-
ing applications [12,13]), the rapid variations are super-
fluous information.
Another advantage of this method is the cyclic nature
of the discrete Fourier transform. In many cases this cy-
clic nature is problematic; however, in this case it can be
used to eliminate the divergences at the spectral range
boundaries. These divergences do not have a considerable
influence on the impulse response reconstruction, but
they do influence the phase spectrum at the vicinity of the
boundaries. If the new spectrum is tailored by a linear
padding so that the two boundaries are linearly connected
(due to the cyclic nature of the FFT) the singularity and
the divergences are avoided. That is, the original
amplitude-spectrum 兩H共␻k兲兩, which consists of N measure-
ments, is extended by a linear padding of M values to

冦 冧
兩H共␻k兲兩 0艋k艋N−1
兩H̃共␻k兲兩 = 共k − N兲 共k − N − M + 1兲 . 共19兲
兩H共␻0兲兩 − 兩H共␻N−1兲兩 N 艋 k 艋 N + M − 1
M−1 M−1

We will call this method linear padding. To illustrate the impact of these padding methods, we
Another option for smoothing the divergences is to glue implement the same simulation on a bandwidth of

再 冎
the amplitude spectrum to its mirror image, i.e.,
兩H共␻k兲兩 0艋k艋N−1
兩H̃共␻k兲兩 =
兩H共␻2N−1−k兲兩 N 艋 k 艋 2N − 1
We will call this method mirror padding.
180 GHz. The results are presented in Fig. 2. Instead of
comparing the phase, whose linear change is considerably
. 共20兲 larger than the effects that we are seeking here, we will
compare its spectral derivatives, i.e., the time delay ␶
= d␪ / d␻.
Granot et al.
150
100
50
τ(ps)
0 measurements, then the fast FFT and IFFT algorithms
−50
−100
300 300.02 300.04 300.06 300.08 300.1
f(THz)
100
0 80
60
−50
τ(ps)
τ(ps)
40
20
−100
0 2.
−20
300.005 300.01 300.015 300.17
f(THz)
Fig. 2. A comparison between the time delay reconstruction of
the mirror padding (dash-dotted curve), the linear padding (solid
curve), the exact (dashed), and the no-padding techniques (dot-
ted). There is a small time lag between the exact and the recon-
structed results, which is absent in this figure to aid in the
comparison.
When the KK method is applied without padding (the
dotted curve) the divergences at the boundaries clearly
appear (see the two lower plots, which focus on the bound-
aries), and the time delay deviates considerably from the
theoretical exact value (dashed curve). However, when
padding is applied then the divergences disappear. We
could not determine which type of padding is better. In
Fig. 2 the linear padding (solid curve) gives better results
at the lower boundary, while at the upper boundary the
mirror padding (dash-dotted curve) is better.
5. SUMMARY
To summarize, we have adopted features of the well-
known KK method to reconstruct the impulse response of
a medium from a discrete (and finite) set of measure-
ments of its amplitude spectrum. Then we applied it to
the reconstruction of the impulse response of a diffusive
medium. This technique is quicker and more efficient
than the previous method taken by our group (see Refs.
[4,5]), where first the phase spectrum was retrieved (a
relatively time-consuming process) and only then the im-
Vol. 27, No. 2 / February 2010 / J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 357
no padding
pulse response was reconstructed. The main benefit of
exact
linear padding this method is that it is based on Fourier transforms, and
mirror padding
since the amplitude spectrum is a (finite) discrete set of
can be used to accelerate the process. Moreover, this
method can be incorporated with several padding tech-
300.12 300.14 300.16 300.18 niques, which can reduce the singularities and diver-
gences, which appear at the spectrum boundaries recon-
struction.
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