Non-sinusoidal waveform

Sine, square, triangle, and sawtooth waveforms

Non-sinusoidal waveforms are waveforms that are not pure sine waves. They are usually derived from simple math functions. While a pure sine consists of a single frequency, non-sinusoidal waveforms can be described as containing multiple sine waves of different frequencies. These "component" sine waves will be whole number multiples of a fundamental or "lowest" frequency. The frequency and amplitude of each component can be found using a mathematical technique known as Fourier analysis.

Non-sinusoidal waveforms are important in, for example, mathematics, music and electronics.

Examples of non-sinusoidal waveforms include square waves, rectangular waves, triangle waves, spiked waves, trapezoidal waves and sawtooth waves.

Sine wave
5 seconds of a 220 Hz sine wave

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Square wave sound sample
5 seconds of square wave at 1 kHz

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Triangle wave sound sample
5 seconds of triangle wave at 220 Hz

Problems playing this file? See media help.
Sawtooth aliasing demo
Sawtooth waves played bandlimited and aliased at 440 Hz, 880 Hz, and 1760 Hz

Problems playing this file? See media help.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/30/2014. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.