Methods of transforms and data analysis 375
Laplace transform of f(t). If f (t) = 0 at t < 0, then we obtain the one-side Laplace
transform
F (s) =
∞
Z
0
f(t) exp(−st)dt, (12.13)
where s = σ + iω, in addition the following condition lim
t→±∞
{exp(−s|t|)f(t)} = 0
must be satisfied. The inverse Laplace transform, can be written as
f(t) =
1
2πi
σ+i∞
Z
σ−i∞
F (s) exp(st)ds, (12.14)
where the path of integration is a straight line, which is parallel to the imaginary
axis and placed in the right half-plane of the complex plane.
In many cases Laplace transform is more preferable than Fourier transform, for
example, in the cases when the function F (s) from the transform of (12.14) has the
pole particularities in the imaginary axis.
12.3 Z-Transform
Z-transform is a special kind of the transform, which is useful for calculations with
the functions represented by their discrete sequences.
Let us consider the sequence of numbers b
k
, which is a discrete representation
of the continuous function f(t) at given time points t
k
= k∆ (k = . . . , −1, 0, 1, . . . ),
where ∆ is a sampling interval. Let us write the discrete image f
d
(t) of the function
f(t) as
f
d
(t) =
∞
X
k=−∞
b
k
δ(t − k∆), (12.15)
where δ(t) is delta function. The Fourier transform of f
d
(t) can be written as the
following sum
B(ω) =
∞
Z
−∞
f
d
(t) exp(−iωt)dt =
∞
X
k=−∞
b
k
exp(−ikω∆). (12.16)
Introducing the notation Z = exp(−iω∆) we can write B(ω) (12.16) as polynomial
B(Z) =
∞
X
k=−∞
b
k
Z
k
, (12.17)
where B(Z) is Z-transform of f
d
(t)
1
.
1
Once Z is determined as Z = exp(iω∆), then a polynomial with reversed sign of Z is obtained
in comparison with the sign of the polynomials which are considered above.