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Digital Signal Processing ••• (••••) •••–•••
www.elsevier.com/locate/dsp
A basis for efficient representation of the S-transform
R.G. Stockwell
Northwest Research Associates, Colorado Research Associates Division, 3380 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80301, USA
Abstract
The S-transform is a time-frequency representation known for its local spectral phase properties. A key feature of the S-transform
is that it uniquely combines a frequency dependent resolution of the time-frequency space and absolutely referenced local phase in-
formation. This allows one to define the meaning of phase in a local spectrum setting, and results in many desirable characteristics.
One drawback to the S-transform is the redundant representation of the time-frequency space and the consumption of computing
resources this requires (a characteristic it shares with the continuous wavelet transform, the short time Fourier transform, and Co-
hen’s class of generalized time-frequency distributions). The cost of this redundancy is amplified in multidimensional applications
such as image analysis. A more efficient representation is introduced here as a orthogonal set of basis functions that localizes the
spectrum and retains the advantageous phase properties of the S-transform. These basis functions are defined to have phase char-
acteristics that are directly related to the phase of the Fourier transform spectrum, and are both compact in frequency and localized
in time. Distinct from a wavelet approach, this approach allows one to directly collapse the orthogonal local spectral representation
over time to the complex-valued Fourier transform spectrum. Because it maintains the phase properties of the S-transform, one
can perform localized cross spectral analysis to measure phase shifts between each of multiple components of two time series as a
function of both time and frequency. In addition, one can define a generalized instantaneous frequency (IF) applicable to broadband
nonstationary signals. This is the first time a channel IF has been integrated in an orthogonal local spectral representation. A direct
comparison between these basis functions and complex wavelets is performed, highlighting the advantages of this approach. The
relationship between this basis set and the fully redundant S-transform is demonstrated highlighting the ability to arbitrarily sample
the time-frequency space. The introduction of this basis set leads to efficient analysis routines that may find use in a wide range of
fields.
© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: S-transform; Time-frequency analysis; Wavelets
1. Introduction
In observations of the ocean and atmosphere, one finds that the environment is full of waves that are obviously not
infinite in extent nor constant over time. For instance, acoustic waves, internal waves, tides and tidal harmonics, inertial
oscillations, surface and other interface waves, solitons and nonlinear wave events exhibit changing characteristics.
Many of these waves, however, have an obvious oscillatory manner, which have lead over the years to many attempts
to analyze the dynamic spectrum or local spectral nature of the observations.
One popular method is the short time Fourier transform [1] and the related Gabor transform [2]. A closely related
method is complex demodulation [3] which produces a series of band pass filtered voices and is also related to the
E-mail address: stockwell@co-ra.com.
1051-2004/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.dsp.2006.04.006