Windowing

A required waveform processing step in which the time varying analog signal is “framed” by the multiplication of another known time function. This mathematical operation provides a sampled time waveform that appears continuous and periodic. Discontinuities are “filled in” by forcing the sampled signal to equal zero at the beginning and end of the sampling period, or window. The most commonly used functions are the Hanning window, flat-top window, and exponential window.