Wednesday, 6 January 2016

Using FFT for spectral analysis: How to convert from power to dBm?


I have the output of my FFT, an array of complex numbers, and each one has been computed to the magnitude squared. To my understanding, the magnitude squared is equivalent to the power, so in order to map to dBm, I would take 10 * log(x) of each of these numbers. This does not seem to give accurate dBm levels according to another spectral analyzer.


Converting to magnitude voltage, by taking the square root of the magnitude squared and dividing by the size of the FFT, and then taking the 20 * log(x) of this number seems to give closer dBm level when compared to other equipment. Why is this?




No comments:

Post a Comment

arduino - Can I use TI's cc2541 BLE as micro controller to perform operations/ processing instead of ATmega328P AU to save cost?

I am using arduino pro mini (which contains Atmega328p AU ) along with cc2541(HM-10) to process and transfer data over BLE to smartphone. I...