The Fastest Fourier Transform In The West

An interesting aspect of time-varying waveforms is that by using a trick called a Fourier Transform (FT), they can be represented as the sum of their underlying frequencies. This mathematical insight is extremely helpful when processing signals digitally, and allows a simpler way to implement frequency-dependent filtration in a digital system. [klafyvel] needed this capability for a project, so started researching the best method that would fit into an Arduino Uno. In an effort to understand exactly what was going on they have significantly improved on the code size, execution time and accuracy of the previous crown-wearer.

A complete real-time Fourier Transform is a resource-heavy operation that needs more than an Arduino Uno can offer, so faster approximations have been developed over the years that exchange absolute precision for speed and size. These are known as Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs). [klafyvel] set upon diving deep into the mathematics involved, as well as some low-level programming techniques to figure out if the trade-offs offered in the existing solutions had been optimized. The results are impressive.

Not content with producing one new award-winning algorithm, what is documented on the blog is a masterclass in really understanding a problem and there are no less than four algorithms to choose from depending on how you rank the importance of execution speed, accuracy, code size or array size.

Along the way, we are treated to some great diversions into how to approximate floats by their exponents (French text), how to control, program and gather data from an Arduino using Julia, how to massively improve the speed of the code by using trigonometric identities and how to deal with overflows when the variables get too large. There is a lot to digest in here, but the explanations are very clear and peppered with code snippets to make it easier and if you have the time to read through, you’re sure to learn a lot!  The code is on GitHub here.

If you’re interested in FFTs, we’ve seen them before around these parts. Fill your boots with this link of tagged projects.