0 12

Hilbert Transform and Applications

Yi-Wen Liu
National Tsing Hua University Taiwan
1. Introduction
Hilbert transform nds a companion function y(t) for a real function x (t) so that z(t) = x (t) + iy(t) can be analytically extended from the real line t R to upper half of the complex plane. In the eld of signal processing, Hilbert transform can be computed in a few steps: First, calculate the Fourier transform of the given signal x (t). Second, reject the negative frequencies. Finally, calculate the inverse Fourier transform, and the result will be a complex-valued signal where the real and the imaginary parts form a Hilbert-transform pair. When x (t) is narrow-banded, |z(t)| can be regarded as a slow-varying envelope of x (t) while the phase derivative t [tan1 (y/ x )] is an instantaneous frequency. Thus, Hilbert transform can be interpreted as a way to represent a narrow-band signal in terms of amplitude and frequency modulation. The transform is therefore useful for diverse purposes such as latency analysis in neuro-physiological signals (Recio-Spinoso et al., 2011; van Drongelen, 2007), design of bizarre stimuli for psychoacoustic experiments (Smith et al., 2002), speech data compression for communication (Potamianos & Maragos, 1994), regularization of convergence problems in multi-channel acoustic echo cancellation (Liu & Smith, 2002), and signal processing for auditory prostheses (Nie et al., 2006). The rest of this review chapter is organized as follows: Sec. 2 reviews the mathematical denition of Hilbert transform and various ways to calculate it. Secs. 3 and 4 review applications of Hilbert transform in two major areas: Signal processing and system identication. The chapter concludes with remarks on the historical development of Hilbert transform in Sec. 6.

2. Mathematical foundations of Hilbert transform

The desire to construct the Hilbert transform stemmed from this simple quest: Given a real-valued function f : R R, can we nd an imaginary part ig such that f c = f + ig can be analytically extended? For example, if f ( x ) = cos( x ), then by inspection we can nd g( x ) = sin( x ) such that f c ( x ) = f + ig = exp(ix ). This function can obviously be extended analytically to the entire complex plane by replacing the real variable x with the complex variable z in the expression; the result is f ext (z) = exp(iz) and we have Re{ f ext (z)}|z= x = f ( x ), (1)

www.intechopen.com

292 2

Fourier Transform Applications Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

which states that real part of the extended function is equal to the original given function f ( x ) on the real line. The companion function g( x ) is called the Hilbert transform of f ( x ). This simple example brings forth a few questions. First, is analytic extension always possible for reasonably smooth f ( x )? If so, is the companion function g( x ) unique, in the sense that Eq. (1) would hold? The answer to the second question is a denite No, because any f c ( x ) = f ( x ) + i { g( x ) + g0 } also satises Eq. (1), where g0 is an arbitrary constant. Therefore, the original simple quest needs to be rened as follows.
2.1 Hilbert transform as a boundary-value problem

To establish the uniqueness of the companion function, we rst note that any analytic function f ext (z) = f R (z) + i f I (z) dened on the complex plane z = x + iy must satisfy Cauchy-Riemann equations, fR f = I, x y f fI = R. x y Consequently, both f R and f I satisfy Laplaces equation, 2 FR 2 FR + = 0, x2 y2 2 FI 2 FI + =0 2 x y2 (2) (3)

over the region where f ext (z) is analytic. Conventionally, by requiring f ext (z) to be analytic in the upper half-plane, the quest of nding the Hilbert transform for any given function f ( x ) can be formulated as a boundary value problem (Scott, 1970). By specifying the boundary conditions that f R ( x, 0) = f ( x ), and that f R ( x, y) = 0 as x or y , f R ( x, y) can be uniquely determined by solving Laplaces equation (Eq. 2) in the upper half plane. Then, through Cauchy-Riemann equations, f I ( x, y) can be calculated in the entire upper half plane and in particular on its boundary the x-axis (Scott, 1970). Thus g( x ) = FI ( x, 0) is the Hilbert transform of the given function f ( x ).
2.2 Calculation through improper integrals

The above formulation of Hilbert transform as a boundary-value problem is hardly mentioned in recent texts [except as an exercise problem in Oppenheim & Schafer (2010)].1 : Instead,

The boundary-value-problem formulation is missing for a reason it does not tell us how to compute the Hilbert transform.

www.intechopen.com

Hilbert Transform and Applications Hilbert Transform and Applications

293 3

Here, note that the convolution kernel function h( x ) = 1/ x is singular at x = 0. Therefore, the integral in Eq. 4 is improper in the sense of Cauchys principal value: g( x ) = lim
x

Hilbert transform is commonly introduced and dened through an improper integral [e.g., (Hahn, 1996)]: 1 1 g( x ) = du. (4) f (u) xu

x +

f (u) h( x u)du.

(5)

To be convinced that Eq. 4 indeed produces the Hilbert transform, we need to think about the effects of Hilbert transform in the frequency domain. First, for any frequency k, note that the Hilbert transform of f k ( x ) = cos(kx ) is gk ( x ) = sin(kx ). So, we can understand Hilbert transform as a phase shifter which gives every sinusoidal function 90 degrees of phase shift. Therefore, in the frequency domain, we have G (k) = F (k) (i sgn(k)) , (6)

where G (k ) and F (k) are the Fourier transform of g( x ) and f ( x ), respectively, and sgn( x ) is the sign function (i.e., sgn(k) = 1 if k > 0 and sgn(k) = 1 if k < 0.) Therefore, if we think of H (k) = i sgn(k) as the transfer function of a phase-shift kernel h( x ), the kernel can be written as the inverse Fourier transform of the transfer function; that is, h( x ) =
1 H (k)eikx dk. 2

(7)

Note that H (k) = i for k > 0 and H (k) = i for k < 0. Therefore, H (k)s rst derivative with respect to k is H = 2i ( k ) , (8) k where (k) is the Dirac delta function. Since the operator /k in the frequency domain corresponds to multiplication by ix in the space domain, we can take the inverse Fourier transform on both sides of Eq. 8 and obtain the following,

ix h( x ) = 2i

1 (k)eikx dk 2

i .

(9)

Dividing both sides by ix, we conclude that the convolution kernel h( x ) = 1/ x.

2.3 The notion of Hilbert transform pairs

The phase-shifter interpretation of Hilbert transform leads to the fact that if f ( x )s Hilbert transform is g( x ), then g( x )s Hilbert transform is f ( x ); in this sense, f ( x ) and g( x ) form a Hilbert transform pair. This symmetric property can be understood as follows. Note that the H 2 (k) = 1 for all k since H (k) = i. This means that if we take the Hilbert transform twice, the result would be the original function with a negative sign.

www.intechopen.com

294 4

Fourier Transform Applications Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

This makes sense because Hilbert transform introduces a 90-degree phase shift to all simple harmonics. Therefore, Hilbert transform repeated twice introduces a 180-degree phase shift to all simple harmonics, which means multiplication of the original function by 1. A table of commonly used Hilbert transform pairs can be found in the Appendix of Hahn (1996) for applications in signal processing. A thorough 80-page table of Hilbert transform pairs can be found in the Appendix of King (2009b) and transform pairs are also plotted in a 20-page atlas.
2.4 The convolution kernel h( x ) as the Hilbert transform of ( x )

We now introduce another way to derive the convolution kernel of Hilbert transform. To begin, note that Eq. 5 essentially states that Hilbert transform is a ltering process which is characterized by its impulse response h( x ). Therefore, h( x ) must be regarded as the Hilbert transform of the impulse function ( x ). Then, it is of our interest to check that f c ( x ) = ( x ) + ih( x ) can be regarded as an analytic function in the sense of Eq. 1. To see it, consider a family of complex analytic functions f (z) = i / (z + i ) parametrized by a variable > 0. Since the only singularity of f (z) is at z = i , f (z) is analytic in the entire upper half plane. Therefore, the real part and imaginary part of f (z) form a Hilbert transform pair on the real line x R. With a little algebra, the real and imaginary parts can be written as f (x) = where f R (x) = and f I (x) = form a Hilbert transform pair for any > 0. Now we let approach zero and observe f R ( x ) and f I ( x ). Note that f R ( x )dx = 1 regardless of the value of , and that f R (0) = 1/ approaches innity as 0. So we can claim that lim f R ( x ) = ( x ). (11)
0

i = f R ( x ) + i f I ( x ), ( x + i ) ( x2 + 2 ) x ( x2 + 2 )

(10)

Meanwhile, it is trivial that

0

lim f I ( x ) = 1/ x.

(12)

From the arguments above, we can be convinced that the Hilbert transform of ( x ) is indeed 1/ x, for f c ( x ) = ( x ) + i (1/ x ) is equal to the limit function of f ( x ) as 0 (Scott, 1970).

3. Applications in signal processing

Signal processing is nowadays conveniently conducted in the digital domain. The rst step of signal digitization involves sampling an analog signal x (t) at a constant rate f s = 1/ T where

www.intechopen.com

Hilbert Transform and Applications Hilbert Transform and Applications

295 5

T is the sampling period. In this section, we denote the sampled waveform as x [n] = x (nT ), using the square brackets [] to indicate that the signal is sampled in discrete time. So the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) is dened as follows:2

X ( j ) =

n=

x [ n] e j n .

Note that X ( j ) is periodic at every 2 in the frequency domain.3 Next, we show how Hilbert transform can be dened in discrete time.
3.1 The discrete-time Hilbert transform and Hilbert transformers

Recall that the Hilbert transform introduce a 90-degree phase shift to all sinusoidal components. In the discrete-time periodic-frequency domain, the transfer function of Hilbert transform is specied as follows, H ( j ) =

j, j,

0<<

< < 0

(13)

The convolution kernel for H ( j ) can be calculated through inverse Fourier transform (Oppenheim & Schafer, 2010): h[n] =
1 H ( j )e j n d 2
2 2 sin ( n) , n

(14) (15)

n=0 n=0

0,

Note that h[n] has a innite support from n = to . In practice, the entire function can not be stored digitally. To circumvent this difculty, we now discuss two major methods for calculating the discrete-time Hilbert transform.
3.1.1 The MATLAB approach

The universally popular scientic-computing software MATLAB (MathWorks, Natick, Massachusetts, USA) has a hilbert() function that computes the so-called discrete-time analytic signal X = Xr + i*Xi such that Xi is the Hilbert transform of Xr.4 MATLABs implementation of the hilbert() function takes advantage of the fast Fourier transform (FFT). Essentially, the hilbert() function completes the calculation in three steps: Do the FFT of Xr. Set the elements in FFT which correspond to frequency < < 0 to zero. Do the inverse FFT.
2 3 4

We now switch to the electrical-engineering convention of using j to refer to 1. Hereafter, we use capital letters X , Y , Z, H , ... to denote spectrums in the frequency domain, and lowercase letters x, y, z, h for signals in the time domain. This is what MATLABs help le shows.

www.intechopen.com

296 6

Fourier Transform Applications Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

That the three steps above can work is a consequence of the fact that, if xi [n] is the discrete Hilbert transform of xr [n], the Fourier transform of xr [n] + jxi [n] vanishes for all negative frequencies < < 0. This can be veried by inspecting the denition given in Eq. 13. Remarks: Perhaps because of MATLABs popularity and easiness to use, many have allegedly mis-regard the returned vector X=hilbert(Xr) as the Hilbert transform of Xr. One must be aware of these deviations from the conventional denition to avoid unnecessary confusion.
3.1.2 Hilbert transform as a lter design problem

Thanks to FFT, MATLABs implementation of Hilbert transform is very efcient. However, it should be used with caution note that the Hilbert transform dened in Eq. 13 has a discontinuity at = 0. Consequently (due to Gibbs phenomenon), the convolution kernel h[n] in Eq. 15 has an innite support in time. As a result, when implemented through FFT, the Hilbert transform kernel wraps around itself and time-domain aliasing comes in (Oppenheim & Schafer, 2010). The time-domain aliasing could be perceived as artifacts in applications such as audio and video signal processing. To avoid time-domain aliasing, one can formulate discrete Hilbert transform as a lter-design problem. The ideal transfer function is specied by Eq. 13, and there are standard techniques to design nite impulse response (FIR) or innite impulse response (IIR) lters that appraoch the ideal transfer function. For example, one can truncate the ideal impulse response by multiplying it with a window function w[n] which has a nite support (lets say from n = N to N ). Then the resulting function w[n] h[n] yields an approximate magnitude response Hw ( j ) that has a smooth transition between negative and positive frequencies as well as ripples in both regions. The height of the ripples can be reduced by selecting the window function wisely, while the transition bandwidth is inversely proportional to the window length. Interested readers can refer to Chapter 7 and 12 of Oppenheim & Schafer (2010). The FIR or IIR lters designed to approximate Hilbert transform are called Hilbert transformers. Next, we discuss applications of Hilbert transformers in communication and in biomedical engineering.
3.2 Sampling of bandpass signals for communication

An important application of Hilbert transformers is in sampling bandpass signals.5 To explain this, let us assume that a bandpass signal s(t) is has a region of support f c f f c + f in the frequency domain, where f = 0.2 f c . Based on Nyquists theorem, the sampling rate needs to be at least two times the highest frequency, or 2.4 f c , to avoid frequency-domain aliasing. However, the bandwidth of this signal is really f = 0.2 f c , so f s = 2.4 f c is in fact an oversampling. To take advantage of the narrow bandwidth, we initially need to sample at 2.4 f c to obtained an oversampled signal sr [n] = s(nT ), where T = 1/ f s . Then, we can use a Hilbert transformer to obtain si [n] such that the Fourier transform of s[n] = sr [n] + jsi [n] has no components at negative frequencies < < 0. Now, S( j )s region of support is (5 /6, ). Therefore, we can down sample s[n] by a factor of 6 and there would be no frequency-domain aliasing.
5

This part is adapted from Sec. 12.4.3 of Oppenheim & Schafer (2010)

www.intechopen.com

Hilbert Transform and Applications Hilbert Transform and Applications

297 7

Transmitting sd [n] = s[6n] is more efcient than transmitting sr [n] because the sampling rate is lowered. To reconstruct sr [n] from sd [n], we can do the following: Expand sd [n] by a factor of 6; i.e., construct se [n] = sd [n/6], 0, if n = 0, 6, 12, ... otherwise.

Filter se [n] with the passband of (5 /6, ). Take the real part, and the result is a reconstructed copy of sr [n]. In practice, since all Hilbert bandpass lters are not ideal, one needs to consider sampling at slightly higher than 2.4 f c . That would protect the passband from ripple interference both during downsampling and during signal reconstruction.
3.3 AM-FM decomposition for auditory prostheses

A cochlear implant device consists of up to tens of electrodes which are inserted as an array to the cochlea to stimulate auditory nerves by electrical currents (Zeng et al., 2008). Each channel (electrode) represents an acoustic frequency band; the amount of currents sent to an electrode should faithfully reect how acoustic energy entering through the ear microphone varies in time in the corresponding frequency band. Typically, acoustic waveforms are processed with a bank of lters and the resulting envelopes control the electrical currents sent to individual electrodes. In this application scenario, a Hilbert transformer has been found useful for envelope extraction. This can be understood by noting that the Hilbert transform produces a sin( t) for every cos( t). For a narrow-band signal s R (t), we can factor it as a product of slow-varying envelope A(t) and fast-varying ne structure f (t): s R (t) = A(t) f (t) = A(t) cos[(t)] where d(t)/dt can be regarded as an instantaneous frequency of the signal. It can be shown that, if A(t) varies sufciently slowly, the Hilbert transform produces approximately s I (t) = A(t) sin[(t)]. Then, the envelope A(t) can simply be estimated by taking the root of sum of squares: A(t)
2 s2 R ( t ) + s I ( t ).

(16)

Clinically, encoding the currents based on A(t) provides clear speech perception for cochlear-implant users (Nie et al., 2006). Moreover, auditory pitch information can be extracted by taking the time-derivation of (t), which can be determined by the relative phase between s I and s R : s I (t) . (t) = tan1 s R (t) Pitch is arguably the utmost important feature for music perception as well as understanding tonal languages. Here, we see Hilbert transform can serve as an efcient computation tool to extract it.

www.intechopen.com

298 8

Fourier Transform Applications Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

4. Applications in system identication

Hilbert transform relates the real part and the imaginary part of the transfer function of any physically viable linear time-invariant system. By physical viability we mean a system should be stable and causal. Stability requires the systems to produce bounded output if the input is bounded [so called the bounded-input bounded-output criterion, (Oppenheim & Schafer, 2010)]. Causality prohibits the system from producing responses before any stimulus comes in. Denote the impulse response as h(t) and its Laplace transform as H (s). The above conditions requires that h(t) = 0 for all t < 0 (causality) All sigularities of H (s) are located in the left half-plane (stability). The two conditions above ensure that H (s) converges and is analytic in the entire right half-plane, and in particular on the imaginary axis s = j . Therefore, the real and imaginary part of H ( j ) = HR ( ) + jH I ( ) are inter-dependent in term of the Kramers-Krnig relations (King, 2009b): 1 HR (u)du u 1 H I (u)du HR ( ) = u H I ( ) = which is basically Hilbert transform in its time-frequency dual form. The Kramers-Krnig relations govern how physical viable transfer functions can vary in frequency. For instance, the real and imaginary part of an electromagnetic wave propagation function denes the attenuation and the wavenumber per unit length as a function of frequency. The frequency dependence of both functions is referred to as dispersion, for in optics it describes how red light travels faster than violet light in water so we behold the beauty of rainbows after raining. It is now intriguing to realize that the attenuation and velocity of light are two inter-dependent functions of frequency. More physics-inclined readers can refer to Kings thorough discussion on dispersion relations in electrodynamics and optics (King, 2009b). To a certain extent, the concept that the real and the imaginary parts are inter-dependent similarly applies to the magnitude and phase of transfer functions of a physically viable system. Note that any transfer function H ( j ) can be decomposed logarithmically into magnitude and phase: log H ( j ) = log | H ( j )| + j H ( j ). This shows that the log-magnitude and the phase are real and imaginary parts of the log-spectrum, respectively. It might appear that they must satisfy the Kramers-Krnig ( j ) = relations. Unfortunately, this is a wishful thinking since apparently H exp( j ) H ( j ), where is a constant, would have the same magnitude as H ( j ) but a different phase response.6 (17) (18)

It turns out that, for any given magnitude response, the uniqueness of phase response can be established if the transfer function satises a minimum-phase criterion; the criterion requires
6

( t ) = h ( t ). in fact, h

www.intechopen.com

Hilbert Transform and Applications Hilbert Transform and Applications

299 9

that all zeros and poles of the transfer function H (s) to be located in the left-half plane. This criterion ensures that all the singularities of log H (s) are located in the left-half plane so the real and imaginary parts of log H (s) become a Hilbert transform pair. Otherwise, any transfer function can be uniquely factorized as a product of a minimum-phase function M ( j ) and an all-pass function P( j ). It is noteworthy that the system whose transfer function is M( j ) has the minimal energy delay among all linear time-invariant systems of the same magnitude response. Further readings are recommended in Chapter 5 and 12 of Oppenheim & Schafer (2010).

5. Concluding remarks and historical developments

In this chapter, we rst presented Hilbert transform as an analytic extension problem. Hilbert transform uniquely exists due to Cauchy-Riemann equations. We then reviewed several different ways to calculate Hilbert transform. A few important points stand out: First, Hilbert transform can be regarded as a 90-degree phase shifter. Secondly, the real part and imaginary part of a physically viable transfer function must satisfy Kramers-Krnig relations, which is the Hilbert transform applied in time-frequency duality. A good reference on these topics can be found in Oppenheim & Schafer (2010). The construction of Hilbert transform pairs through Cauchy-Riemann equations in Sec. 2.1 was found in the appendices of an old text on microwave electronics (Scott, 1970). The original formulation was stated in terms of Kramers-Krnig relation, and in this chapter that formulation is adapted so the signal is dened on the real line instead of the frequency axis j. As a matter of fact, the denition of Hilbert transform was not given by David Hilbert himself. The name Hilbert transform was rst given by the British mathematician G. H. Hardy in honor of Hilberts pioneering work on integral equations (King, 2009a). Hardys early work established mathematical rigor of the transform (Hardy, 1932), which we now apply in various areas such as physiology and telecommnication. A review of these contributions from brilliant mathematicians reminds us that the transform really is a heritage from the 20th century. Nevertheless, it is also amusing that nowadays we calculate Hilbert transform with super fast computers, which might never had been envisioned by 20th-century pioneers, including Hilbert, Hardy, Scott, or even Oppenheim.

6. Acknowledgement
This work is supported by Taiwans National Science Council through research grant No. 100-2221-E-007-011.

7. References
Hahn, S. L. (1996). Hilbert Transforms in Signal Processing, Artech House, Inc., Norwood, MA, USA. Hardy, G. H. (1932). On hilbert transforms, Quart. J. Math. (Oxford) 3: 102112. King, F. W. (2009a). Hilbert Transforms, Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. King, F. W. (2009b). Hilbert Transforms, Vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

www.intechopen.com

300 10

Fourier Transform Applications Will-be-set-by-IN-TECH

Liu, Y.-W. & Smith, J. O. (2002). Perceptually similar orthogonal sounds and applications to multichannel acoustic echo canceling, Proc. Audio Eng. Soc. 22nd Int. Conf., Espoo, Finland. Nie, K., Barco, A. & Zeng, F.-G. (2006). Spectral and temporal cues in cochlear implant speech perception, Ear Hear. 27: 208217. Oppenheim, A. V. & Schafer, R. W. (2010). Discrete-Time Signal Processing, 3rd Edition, Pearson, Boston. Potamianos, A. & Maragos, P. (1994). A comparison of the energy operator and the hilbert transform approach to signal and speech demodulation, Signal Processing 37(1): 95 120. Recio-Spinoso, A., Fan, Y.-H. & Ruggero, M. (2011). Basilar-membrane responses to broadband noise modeled using linear lters with rational transfer functions, Biomedical Engineering, IEEE Transactions on 58(5): 1456 1465. Scott, A. (1970). Active and Nonlinear Wave Propagation in Electronics, Wiley-Interscience, New York. Smith, Z. M., Delgutte, B. & Oxenham, A. J. (2002). Chimaeric sounds reveal dichotomies in auditory perception, Nature 416: 8790. van Drongelen, W. (2007). Signal Processing for Neuroscientists: Introduction to the analysis of physiological signals, Academic Press, London. Zeng, F.-G., Rebscher, S., Harrison, W., Sun, X. & Feng, H. (2008). Cochlear implants: System design, integration, and evaluation, IEEE Rev. Biomed. Eng. 1: 115142.

www.intechopen.com

Fourier Transform Applications Edited by Dr Salih Salih

ISBN 978-953-51-0518-3 Hard cover, 300 pages Publisher InTech

Published online 25, April, 2012

Published in print edition April, 2012 The book focuses on Fourier transform applications in electromagnetic field and microwave, medical applications, error control coding, methods for option pricing, and Helbert transform application. It is hoped that this book will provide the background, reference and incentive to encourage further research and results in these fields as well as provide tools for practical applications. It provides an applications-oriented analysis written primarily for electrical engineers, control engineers, signal processing engineers, medical researchers, and the academic researchers. In addition the graduate students will also find it useful as a reference for their research activities.

How to reference

In order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following: Yi-Wen Liu (2012). Hilbert Transform and Applications, Fourier Transform Applications, Dr Salih Salih (Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-51-0518-3, InTech, Available from: http://www.intechopen.com/books/fourier-transformapplications/hilbert-transform-and-applications

InTech Europe

University Campus STeP Ri Slavka Krautzeka 83/A 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Phone: +385 (51) 770 447 Fax: +385 (51) 686 166 www.intechopen.com

InTech China

Unit 405, Office Block, Hotel Equatorial Shanghai No.65, Yan An Road (West), Shanghai, 200040, China Phone: +86-21-62489820 Fax: +86-21-62489821