Short-time Fourier Transform - Resolution Issues

Resolution Issues

One of the downfalls of the STFT is that it has a fixed resolution. The width of the windowing function relates to how the signal is represented—it determines whether there is good frequency resolution (frequency components close together can be separated) or good time resolution (the time at which frequencies change). A wide window gives better frequency resolution but poor time resolution. A narrower window gives good time resolution but poor frequency resolution. These are called narrowband and wideband transforms, respectively.

This is one of the reasons for the creation of the wavelet transform and multiresolution analysis, which can give good time resolution for high-frequency events, and good frequency resolution for low-frequency events, which is the type of analysis best suited for many real signals.

This property is related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but it is not a direct relationship – see Gabor limit for discussion. The product of the standard deviation in time and frequency is limited. The boundary of the uncertainty principle (best simultaneous resolution of both) is reached with a Gaussian window function, as the Gaussian minimizes the Fourier uncertainty principle. This is called the Gabor transform (and with modifications for multiresolution becomes the Morlet wavelet transform).

One can consider the STFT for varying window size as a two-dimensional domain (time and frequency), as illustrated in the example below, which can be calculated by varying the window size. However, this is no longer a strictly time–frequency representation – the kernel is not constant over the entire signal.