Instantaneous phase

Instantaneous phase and frequency are important concepts in signal processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying functions. The instantaneous phase (also known as local phase or simply phase) of a complex-valued function s(t), is the real-valued function: Instantaneous phase and frequency are important concepts in signal processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying functions. The instantaneous phase (also known as local phase or simply phase) of a complex-valued function s(t), is the real-valued function: where arg is the complex argument function.The instantaneous frequency is the temporal rate of the instantaneous phase. And for a real-valued function s(t), it is determined from the function's analytic representation, sa(t): When φ(t) is constrained to its principal value, either the interval (−π, π] or [0, 2π), it is called wrapped phase. Otherwise it is called unwrapped phase, which is a continuous function of argument t, assuming sa(t) is a continuous function of t. Unless otherwise indicated, the continuous form should be inferred. where ω > 0. In this simple sinusoidal example, the constant θ is also commonly referred to as phase or phase offset. φ(t) is a function of time; θ is not. In the next example, we also see that the phase offset of a real-valued sinusoid is ambiguous unless a reference (sin or cos) is specified. φ(t) is unambiguously defined. where ω > 0. In both examples the local maxima of s(t) correspond to φ(t) = 2πN for integer values of N. This has applications in the field of computer vision. Instantaneous angular frequency is defined as: