International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02

17

Complementary Sequences in DSP Based

Testing of Electronic Systems
Farid Ghani, Fellow IET, Fellow IETE, Fellow NTF, C.Eng and Noor Shafiza Mohd Tamim

Abstract This paper presents a scheme for

rapid
measurement of frequency characteristics of electronic products
using DS P techniques. The use of Complementary sequences
instead of the Barker sequences completely removes the sidelobe
error and provides exact measurement of the product
characteristics in the absence of noise. DS P based testing allows
us to send all the test frequencies through the device under test.
Each test tone in the output waveform can then be separated
from other tones using an appropriate digital filter. The gain and
phase measurements at each frequency can then be calculated
without running many separate tests and thus considerably
reducing the measurement time and consequently the time to
market (TTM).

Index Term Digital Filter, Frequency Response, Matched

Filter, Autocorrelation, Complimentary sequences.

I. INT RODUCT ION

Time to market (TTM) is the length of time it takes from a
product being conceived until its being available for sale.
TTM is important in industries where products are outmo ded
quickly like the electronic industry [1-3]. TTM is one of the
important factors that affect the profit margin and the product
cost in the electronic industry and is required to be as short as
possible. For this reason test and measurement of electronic
products has grown into a highly specialized field of electrical
and electronic engineering. Effective short time tests for
testing fabricated circuits and devices are to be designed in
order to reduce TTM.
Most of the performance measures of electronic products are
represented in terms of their frequency response. Hence
measurement of frequency response of electronic devices
/components continues to be an important step in their
production. It is important that such measurements are carried
out effectively and quickly in order to reduce TTM and also
maintain desirable measurement accuracy. Frequency
response of a linear system is the Fourier transform of its
weighting sequence (discrete impulse response). Thus the
measurement of frequency response of linear devices
/components is essentially the measurement of their discrete
impulse response (weighting sequence).

Farid Ghani is with the Universiti Malaysia Perlis, 01000, Kangar, Perlis,
Malaysia; (phone: + 604-9853944; fax: +604-9851695; e-mail:
faridghani@unimap.edu.my ; faridghani@rediffmail.com )
Noor Shafiza Mohd T amim is with the Universiti Malaysia Perlis, 01000,
Kangar, Perlis, Malaysia; (e-mail: noorshafiza@unimap.edu.my ).

A method for rapid measurement of discrete weighting

sequence involving finite duration sequences has recently been
proposed. The system under test is here perturbed with a
carefully chosen sequence of finite duration. The response of
the system to the sequence is then processed with an
appropriate digital filter to give the required weighting
sequence [4,5]. Two different filters namely the digital
matched filter and the optimum inverse filter have been
proposed and sequences like Barker and Huffman sequences
have been considered [5]. The method has the advantage that
the measurements are carried out rapidly. A delay of L clock
periods only is incurred and L can be as small as the sequence
length. This contrasts with the use of most commonly used
periodic pseudo random test signals where it is necessary, in
principle at least, to wait for the system under test to reach its
periodic steady state before starting measurements, which
must then be taken over at least one whole sequence
period[6,7]. There is greater freedom of choice of sequence
length in the case of finite length sequences; the sequence can
be of any length provided that it has sufficient energy and its
autocorrelation sidelobes are low enough. In contrast, with aperiodic test sequences, the period must exceed the effective
duration of the weighting sequence that is to be measured .
The use of finite duration sequences instead of the PRBS
considerably reduces the measurement time and hence the
time to market. However, the side-lobes in the autocorrelation
of the test sequence introduce measurement errors in addition
to those due to noise, and considerably limit the use of the
technique. In this paper an alternative technique is proposed
for the measurement of discrete weighting sequence of linear
systems. The system under test is here perturbed with two
Golay complementary sequences of finite duration[8,9,10].
The response of the system to these sequences is then
processed with appropriate digital matched filters and added
together to give the required weighting sequence. The use of
Golay complementary sequences and digital matched filters
totally removes the sidelobe errors and provide hundred
percent measurement accuracy in the absence of noise.
Moreover, Golay complementary sequences being binary, they
provide the maximum sequence energy for a given length and
hence maximize the signal to noise ratio when the
measurements are carried out in noisy conditions. These
advantages are achieved with only a slight increase in the
measurement time.
MATLAB and SIMULINK is used to
implement the proposed measurement scheme and to study its
performance for two different systems. The performance of
the proposed technique is also compared with the one that uses

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International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02

finite length sequences and digital filters. Since the frequency
response of a system is the Fourier transform of its impulse
response, this paper concentrates on the measurement of the
weighting sequence or the discrete impulse response of
electronic devices /components rather than the frequency
response itself. Once the discrete impulse response is
measured the frequency response is obtained by taking its
Fourier transform.
II. COM PLEM ENTARY SEQUENCES
A complementary pair of sequences (CS pair) satisfies the
useful property that their out-of-phase a-periodic
autocorrelation coefficients sum to zero [8-10]. Let {a} = (a0
a1 . . . aN-1 ) be a sequence of length N such that ai {+1,-1}
(we say that a is bi-polar). Define the a-periodic autocorrelation Function (AACF) of a by

18

Let c be the output sequence given by

c = a + b

(7)

The z-transform C(z) of the output is then

C(z) = z-(N-1)
Input GCS a

(8)

fa
Filter Matched
to GCS a

Pulse like
Output c

+
Input GCS b

fb
Filter
Matched to
GCS b

(a)
N-k-1

a (k)= ai ai+k

0 k N-1

ck

(1)

i=0

In defining a(k) we have considered only the positive values

of delay k. It may be noted that a(k) is an even function of
delay k and a(k) = a(-k). Let b be defined similarly to a. The
pair (a;b) is called a Golay Complementary Pair (GCP) if:
ak z + bk z = 1,

k=N-1

ak z + bk z = 0,

k N-1

-k
-k

-k
-k

2N-1

N-1
(b)

Fig. 1. (a) Practical implementation of Equations (2), (6) and (7). (b) Pulse
like output c of length 2N-1 .

(2)

Each member of a GCP is called a Golay complementary

sequence (GCS, or simply Golay sequence). Note that the
definition (2) can be generalized to non-binary sequences. For
instance, a i and b i
can be selected from the set
th
{ 0 , 0 , . . . , 2 -1 } where is the primitive q root of unity,
which yields so-called poly-phase Golay sequences. Since the
response of a digital matched filter to the sequence it matches
with, is the AACF of the sequence, it is clear from Equation
(2) that if the responses of the GCP to their respective match
filters are added together element by element then the sum
would be a single pulse of magnitude unity. Let
h

and

Delay k
0

fa = { fa0 , fa1 , . . . faN-1 }

fb = { fb0 , fb1 , . . . fbN-1 }

(3)
(4)

be the discrete weighting sequence of length N of the matched

filters matched to the Golay sequences a and b, respectively.
Let A(z) ,B(z), a(z), and b (z) be the respective z-transform
of sequences a, b, AACF a and b. If Fa(z) and Fb (z), is the
z-transform of fa and fb, then from Equation (1)
a(z) = A(z)*Fa(z); b (z) = B(z)*Fb (z)

(5)

From Equations (2) and (5)

ak z-k + bk z-k = z-k ,

k = N-1

ak z-k + bk z-k = 0,

k N-1

(6)

Fig. 1(a) shows diagrammatically the implications of

Equations (2) , (6) and (7). Golay Complementary Sequences
(GCS) a and b excite their respective matched filters fa and fb.
The output from these filters is added element by element to
give the resultant output c as in Equation (7). It can be seen
that for a sequence of length N, the output c in Fig. 1(a) will
consists of a single pulse at the time index N-1 (delay k= N-1)
and zero elsewhere. It is shown in Fig. 1(b).
III. BASIC PRINCIPLES
The principle of the proposed technique is best illustrated
with the help of Fig. 2 which is a further development of Fig.
1.
Input
GCS a

Pulse like
Output c

fa
a
Filter
Matched to
GCS a

+
Input
GCS b

fb
Filter
Matched to b
GCS b

System
Weighting
Sequence h

h
System
Under Test

Frequency
response
H(f)

Fourier
Transform

Fig. 2. Principle of the measurement scheme.

Referring to Fig. 2 the pulse like output c now excites the

system under test. The system is assumed to have weighting
sequence h and z-transfer function H(z). Since the input to
the system is a single pulse except for a possible time shift of
some known clock periods, then the system output in Fig. 2,
will be the discrete impulse response of the system and its

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International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02

Fourier transform will be the required frequency response H(f)
of the system under test.

Input
GCS a

Input
GCS b

z-(N+M)

Frequency
Response H(f)

S1

h
System
Under Test

fa
Filter
Matched to
GCS a

z-(N+M)

+
S2

fb
Filter
Matched to
GCS b

System Weighting Sequence h

Fourier
Transform

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V. RESULTS
The proposed measuring scheme employing Gole
sequences is implemented using MATLAB and SIMULINK to
measure the weighting sequence of a first order system with
two different values of the time constant. Golay sequences of
length 26 are used for the measurement [8,9]. The
measurement is carried out in the absence of noise. For the
sake of comparison the weighting sequences of the same
systems are also measured using finite length sequence and
matched filter [5]. Barker sequence of length 13 is used for
these measurements as this sequence is a binary sequence and
has the best possible AACF. Moreover, Barker codes of length
greater than 13 do not exist [5].

N=length of Sequences a and b; M= Memory of system under test

Switch S1 closes at t=0 and opens at t= (M+N-1)T
Switch S2 closes at t=(M+N)T and opens at t= (2M+N-1)T
T = bit duration

Impulse Response
1

Barker Sequence
Gole Sequence

0.8

In order to keep the system in its linear mode of operation, it is

not desirable to excite it with a single pulse of large magnitude
which is essential if the accuracy of measurement is to be
improved in the presence of noise. The arrangement of Fig. 2
is, therefore, not desirable for practical reasons. However,
since the entire arrangement is linear, the overall transfer
function remains unaltered if the arrangement of Fig. 3 is
used. In this case, the input to the system is a sequence of
pulses rather than a single pulse of large magnitude. The delay
of (N+M) clock instants in Fig. 3 is introduced to avoid any
interference between the responses of the two Golay
sequences and correctly obtain their sum.

Amplitude

Fig. 3. Actual configuration of system and filters

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Time

Fig. 4. Weighting sequence measurement for system with transfer function

H(s) = K/(s+5)
Impulse Response
1

N-1

2
oa
= i2

(9)

2
ai

Barker Sequence
Gole Sequence

0.8

Amplitude

IV. A CCURACY OF M EASUREM ENT

Inaccuracy in the weighting sequence measurement is
introduced due to the system noise that perturbs the output of
the digital matched filter and produces error. If the system
noise is assumed to be a sequence of purely random numbers
(sampled data white noise) of variance i 2 , then referring to
Fig. 3 the noise component of the output of filter matched to
the sequence a will have variance given by

0.6

0.4

0.2

i=0

Similarly the noise component of the output of filter matched

to the sequence b will have a variance given by

2
ob

N-1

2
i

2
bi

(10)

i=0

If the two outputs are uncorrelated then the upper limit to the
total error due to system noise will have a variance given by
2
2
02 =oa
+ob

(11)

It may be noted that in the absence of system noise there will

be no measurement error and the measured weighting
sequence will be identical to the actual weighting sequence of
the system

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Time

Fig. 5. Weighting sequence measurement for system with transfer function

H(s) = K/(s+30)

Fig.s 4 and 5 show the impulse response of systems with

transfer function H(s) = K/(s+5) and H(s) = K/(s+30)
measured using Barker sequence and Gole sequence,
respectively. The time axis is normalized in the two fig.s. In
Fig. 4, the system has a large time constant that exceeds the
duration of the input test sequence. It can be seen from the
fig.s that the side lobes in the response of the matched filter to
the test sequence cause considerable error in the measurement.
On the other hand the impulse response measured using
complementary codes has no sidelobe errors.

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Fig. 5 shows the impulse response of the system with transfer
function H(s) = K / (s+30). The adverse effect of the
sidelobes in the autocorrelation function of the Barker
sequence, on the measurement can be clearly seen. On the
other hand, the results obtained using Gole sequence are
virtually error free. It is seen that sidelobes in the
autocorrelation function of the Barker sequence still corrupt
the measurements and introduce considerable sidelobe error.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
The method of measuring the frequency response of electronic
products discussed in this paper makes use of Golay
complementary sequences and matched filters. It has the
advantage that there are no errors due to the AACF sidelobes
in the measurements. Moreover the measurements are also
carried out rapidly. This contrasts with the use of finite length
test signals like Barker sequences where the sidelobes in the
AACF of the test sequence introduce considerable errors in the
measurements. The proposed method also overcomes the
disadvantages associated with periodic test sequences where it
is necessary, in principle at least, to wait for the system under
test to reach its periodic steady state before starting
measurements, which must then be taken over at leas t one
whole sequence period. There is greater freedom of choice of
sequence length in the case of Complementary sequences; the
sequence can be of any length provided that it has sufficient
energy to result in a high signal to noise ratio in the presence
of system and measurement noise.

20

Farid Ghani received B.Sc. (Engg) and M.Sc. (Engg) degrees from Aligarh
Muslim University, India and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Loughborough
University Of T echnology (U.K).
From 1982 to 2007 and for varying durations, he worked as Professor of
Communication Engineering at Aligarh Muslim University, India, Professor
and Head of the Department of Electronics Engineering, Al-Fateh
University, Libya, and Professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia. He is
currently working as Professor in the School of Computer and
Communication Engineering ,Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia. He is
actively engaged in research in the general areas of digital and wireless
communication, digital signal processing including image coding and adaptive
systems. He has a large number of publications to his credit and is a reviewer
for several international research journals.
Professor Ghani is Fellow of Institution of Engineering and T echnology (IET)
UK, Fellow of Institution of Electronics and T elecommunication
Engineers(IETE) India, and Fellow of National Telematic Forum (NTF) India.
He is also registered with the Council of Engineers(C.Eng) UK as Chartered
Engineer.
Noor Shafiza Mohd Tamim received B. Eng. (Communication and
Computer Engineering) in 2004from Universiti Kebangsaan, Malaysia and
M. Sc. (Communications Engineering) in 2008 from University of Applied
Science, Germany. She is currently working as lecturer in the School of
Computer and Communication Engineering, Universiti Malaysia perils,
Malaysia. She teaches courses in digital signal processing , Electronic
Communication Engineering, Applied Electrical Engineering,C Programming
to undergraduate engineering students. Her research interests include Signal
Detection /Estimation, Analysis and Simulation, Digital Signal Processing.

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