Resolution and Zero-Padding of the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT)

For the final DFT example in this series, we examine a discrete-time signal that contains the sum of two sinusoids that are closely spaced in frequency. Using a simple Matlab script we examine a variety of cases where different numbers of samples are taken, as well as different amounts of zero padding. In cases where the number of samples taken is small, the DFT resolution is not sufficient to resolve both sinusoid signals. As the number of samples is increased, we observe how the DFT resolution improves and the signals are resolved. Zero padding is also used to provide more samples in the frequency domain.

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