Textbook for the master’s study programme at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana.

Signal Processing

prof. dr. Janko Slavič

Preface

This executable textbook is based on the research and development work of the Laboratory for Dynamics of Machines and Structures. Signal processing is not only of key importance for the numerous scientific articles we have published in the leading journals of the field (e.g. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing), but also for many industrial projects (e.g. product quality control). Signal processing is also an important part of the monograph on vibration fatigue (see Slavič et al. [2020]), which is the first to connect spectral methods for the identification of vibration damage with the theory of structural dynamics.

A textbook on signal processing cannot be written without thanking the authors of the reference monographs who laid the foundations of the theory of random processes: Rice [1945], Bendat and Piersol [2011], Newland [2012]. This book focuses on signal processing for use in engineering practice in the field of vibration and sound analysis, and to a certain extent follows the source Shin and Hammond [2008]. The book also draws on Slavič et al. [2020].

It may seem at this point that random processes have little in common with engineering challenges, but toward the end of this book we will discover that the treatment of practically any real system requires an understanding of the theory of random processes, not least because of measurement uncertainty.

A note: because this is an executable book, whose key feature is that the reader/user can adapt it, the limitations of the technology used have forced us to abandon some of the established standards for formatting technical texts. The figures are therefore not captioned, references to equations/figures are given relatively (e.g. “below”, where proper numbering would be appropriate), and in machine-derived expressions the form is not necessarily consistent (e.g. the symbol for the imaginary unit \(\textrm{i}\) is not upright, as it should be).

Acknowledgements

For the expert review of the book I sincerely thank prof. dr. Miha Boltežar and prof. dr. Sašo Tomažič.