Key focus: Learn how to plot FFT of sine wave and cosine wave using Matlab. Understand FFTshift. Plot one-sided, double-sided and normalized spectrum.
Introduction
Numerous texts are available to explain the basics of Discrete Fourier Transform and its very efficient implementation – Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Often we are confronted with the need to generate simple, standard signals (sine, cosine, Gaussian pulse, squarewave, isolated rectangular pulse, exponential decay, chirp signal) for simulation purpose. I intend to show (in a series of articles) how these basic signals can be generated in Matlab and how torepresent them in frequency domain using FFT. If you are inclined towards Python programming, visit here.
This article is part of the following books
● Digital Modulations using Matlab : Build Simulation Models from Scratch, ISBN: 978-1521493885
● Wireless communication systems in Matlab ISBN: 979-8648350779
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Sine Wave
In order to generate a sine wave in Matlab, the first step is to fix the frequency 
of the sine wave. For example, I intend to generate a f=10Hz sine wave whose minimum and maximum amplitudes are 
and 
respectively. Now that you have determined the frequency of the sinewave, the next step is to determine the sampling rate. Matlab is a software that processes everything in digital. In order to generate/plot a smooth sine wave, the sampling rate must be far higher than the prescribed minimum required sampling rate which is at least twice the frequency – as per Nyquist Shannon Theorem. A oversampling factorof 
is chosen here – this is to plot a smooth continuous-like sine wave (If this is not the requirement, reduce the oversampling factor to desired level). Thus the sampling rate becomes 
. If a phase shift is desired for the sine wave, specify it too.
f=10; %frequency of sine waveoverSampRate=30; %oversampling ratefs=overSampRate*f; %sampling frequencyphase = 1/3*pi; %desired phase shift in radiansnCyl = 5; %to generate five cycles of sine wavet=0:1/fs:nCyl*1/f; %time basex=sin(2*pi*f*t+phase); %replace with cos if a cosine wave is desiredplot(t,x);title(['Sine Wave f=', num2str(f), 'Hz']);xlabel('Time(s)');ylabel('Amplitude');Representing in Frequency Domain
Representing the given signal in frequency domain is done via Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) which implements Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) in an efficient manner. Usually, power spectrum is desired for analysis in frequency domain. In a power spectrum, power of each frequency component of the given signal is plotted against their respective frequency. The command 
computes the 
-point DFT. The number of points – – in the DFT computation is taken as power of (2) for facilitating efficient computation with FFT.A value of 
is chosen here. It can also be chosen as next power of 2 of the length of the signal.
Different representations of FFT:
Since FFT is just a numeric computation of -point DFT, there are many ways to plot the result.
1. Plotting raw values of DFT:
The x-axis runs from 
to 
– representing sample values. Since the DFT values are complex, the magnitude of the DFT 
is plotted on the y-axis. From this plot we cannot identify the frequency of the sinusoid that was generated.
NFFT=1024; %NFFT-point DFT X=fft(x,NFFT); %compute DFT using FFT nVals=0:NFFT-1; %DFT Sample points plot(nVals,abs(X)); title('Double Sided FFT - without FFTShift'); xlabel('Sample points (N-point DFT)') ylabel('DFT Values');2. FFT plot – plotting raw values against Normalized Frequency axis:
In the next version of plot, the frequency axis (x-axis) is normalized to unity. Just divide the sample index on the x-axis by the length of the FFT. This normalizes the x-axis with respect to the sampling rate 
. Still, we cannot figure out the frequency of the sinusoid from the plot.
NFFT=1024; %NFFT-point DFT X=fft(x,NFFT); %compute DFT using FFT nVals=(0:NFFT-1)/NFFT; %Normalized DFT Sample points plot(nVals,abs(X)); title('Double Sided FFT - without FFTShift'); xlabel('Normalized Frequency') ylabel('DFT Values');3. FFT plot – plotting raw values against normalized frequency (positive & negative frequencies):
As you know, in the frequency domain, the values take up both positive and negative frequency axis. In order to plot the DFT values on a frequency axis with both positive and negative values, the DFT value at sample index has to be centered at the middle of the array. This is done by using 
function in Matlab. The x-axis runs from 
to 
where the end points are the normalized ‘folding frequencies’ with respect to the sampling rate .
NFFT=1024; %NFFT-point DFT X=fftshift(fft(x,NFFT)); %compute DFT using FFT fVals=(-NFFT/2:NFFT/2-1)/NFFT; %DFT Sample points plot(fVals,abs(X)); title('Double Sided FFT - with FFTShift'); xlabel('Normalized Frequency') ylabel('DFT Values');4. FFT plot – Absolute frequency on the x-axis Vs Magnitude on Y-axis:
Here, the normalized frequency axis is just multiplied by the sampling rate. From the plot below we can ascertain that the absolute value of FFT peaks at 
and 
. Thus the frequency of the generated sinusoid is 
. The small side-lobes next to the peak values at and are due to spectral leakage.
NFFT=1024; X=fftshift(fft(x,NFFT)); fVals=fs*(-NFFT/2:NFFT/2-1)/NFFT; plot(fVals,abs(X),'b'); title('Double Sided FFT - with FFTShift'); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)') ylabel('|DFT Values|');5. Power Spectrum – Absolute frequency on the x-axis Vs Power on Y-axis:
The following is the most important representation of FFT. It plots the power of each frequency component on the y-axis and the frequency on the x-axis. The power can be plotted in linear scale or in log scale. The power of each frequency component is calculated as
Where 
is the frequency domain representation of the signal 
. In Matlab, the power has to be calculated with proper scaling terms (since the length of the signal and transform length of FFT may differ from case to case).
NFFT=1024;L=length(x); X=fftshift(fft(x,NFFT)); Px=X.*conj(X)/(NFFT*L); %Power of each freq components fVals=fs*(-NFFT/2:NFFT/2-1)/NFFT; plot(fVals,Px,'b'); title('Power Spectral Density'); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)') ylabel('Power');If you wish to verify the total power of the signal from time domain and frequency domain plots, follow this link.
Plotting the power spectral density (PSD) plot with y-axis on log scale, produces the most encountered type of PSD plot in signal processing.
NFFT=1024; L=length(x); X=fftshift(fft(x,NFFT)); Px=X.*conj(X)/(NFFT*L); %Power of each freq components fVals=fs*(-NFFT/2:NFFT/2-1)/NFFT; plot(fVals,10*log10(Px),'b'); title('Power Spectral Density'); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)') ylabel('Power');6. Power Spectrum – One-Sided frequencies
In this type of plot, the negative frequency part of x-axis is omitted. Only the FFT values corresponding to to 
sample points of -point DFT are plotted. Correspondingly, the normalized frequency axis runs between to . The absolute frequency (x-axis) runs from to 
.
L=length(x); NFFT=1024; X=fft(x,NFFT); Px=X.*conj(X)/(NFFT*L); %Power of each freq components fVals=fs*(0:NFFT/2-1)/NFFT; plot(fVals,Px(1:NFFT/2),'b','LineSmoothing','on','LineWidth',1); title('One Sided Power Spectral Density'); xlabel('Frequency (Hz)') ylabel('PSD');Rate this article: 
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For further reading
[1] Power spectral density – MIT opencourse ware↗
Topics in this chapter
Essentials of Signal Processing
● Generating standard test signals
□ Sinusoidal signals
□ Square wave
□ Rectangular pulse
□ Gaussian pulse
□ Chirp signal
● Interpreting FFT results - complex DFT, frequency bins and FFTShift
□ Real and complex DFT
□ Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
□ Interpreting the FFT results
□ FFTShift
□ IFFTShift
● Obtaining magnitude and phase information from FFT
□ Discrete-time domain representation
□ Representing the signal in frequency domain using FFT
□ Reconstructing the time domain signal from the frequency domain samples
● Power spectral density
● Power and energy of a signal
□ Energy of a signal
□ Power of a signal
□ Classification of signals
□ Computation of power of a signal - simulation and verification
● Polynomials, convolution and Toeplitz matrices
□ Polynomial functions
□ Representing single variable polynomial functions
□ Multiplication of polynomials and linear convolution
□ Toeplitz matrix and convolution
● Methods to compute convolution
□ Method 1: Brute-force method
□ Method 2: Using Toeplitz matrix
□ Method 3: Using FFT to compute convolution
□ Miscellaneous methods
● Analytic signal and its applications
□ Analytic signal and Fourier transform
□ Extracting instantaneous amplitude, phase, frequency
□ Phase demodulation using Hilbert transform
● Choosing a filter : FIR or IIR : understanding the design perspective
□ Design specification
□ General considerations in design
Books by the author
Wireless Communication Systems in Matlab Second Edition(PDF)  (179 votes, average: 3.62 out of 5) | Digital Modulations using Python (PDF ebook) (133 votes, average: 3.56 out of 5) | Digital Modulations using Matlab (PDF ebook) (135 votes, average: 3.63 out of 5) |
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