FFT Power Spectrum and PSD for 1 Chan (CDB) VI
- Updated2025-07-30
- 6 minute(s) read
Computes the averaged auto power spectrum of time signal. Wire data to the time signal input to determine the polymorphic instance to use or manually select the instance.

Inputs/Outputs
export mode
—
export mode selects the output to export to Power Spectrum / PSD.
restart averaging (F)
—
restart averaging specifies whether the VI restarts the selected averaging process. If restart averaging is TRUE, the VI restarts the selected averaging process. If restart averaging is FALSE, the VI does not restart the selected averaging process. The default is FALSE. When you call this VI for the first time, the averaging process restarts automatically. A typical case when you should restart averaging is when a major input change occurs in the middle of the averaging process.
time signal
—
time signal is the input time-domain waveform.
window
—
window (Hanning) is the time-domain window to apply to the time signal. The default window is Hanning.
dB On (F)
—
dB On specifies whether the results are expressed in decibels. The default is FALSE.
error in (no error)
—
error in describes error conditions that occur before this node runs. This input provides standard error in functionality.
averaging parameters
—
averaging parameters is a cluster that defines how this VI computes the averaging. The specifications of the parameters include the type of averaging, the type of weighting, and the number of averages.
window parameter
—
window parameter specifies the beta parameter for a Kaiser window, the standard deviation for a Gaussian window, and the ratio, s, of the main lobe to the side lobe for a Dolph-Chebyshev window. If window is any other window, this VI ignores this input. The default value of window parameter is NaN, which sets beta to 0 for a Kaiser window, the standard deviation to 0.2 for a Gaussian window, and s to 60 for a Dolph-Chebyshev window.
Power Spectrum / PSD
—
Power Spectrum / PSD returns the averaged power spectrum or power spectral density and the frequency scale, according to export mode.
averaging done
—
averaging done returns TRUE when averages completed is greater than or equal to the number of averages specified in averaging parameters. Otherwise, averaging done returns FALSE. averaging done is always TRUE if the selected averaging mode is No averaging.
averages completed
—
averages completed returns the number of averages completed by the VI at that time.
error out
—
error out contains error information. This output provides standard error out functionality. |
The FFT Power Spectrum VI completes the following steps to compute power spectrum or power spectral density:
- Computes the FFT of time signal.
- Forms the power spectrum or power spectral density of time signal.
- Averages the current power spectrum/power spectral density with the power spectra/power spectral densities computed in previous calls to the VI since the last time the averaging process was restarted.
- Returns the averaged power spectrum or power spectral densities in Power Spectrum/PSD.
The single-channel version of this VI can perform single-channel measurements in both one-shot mode, meaning a single call, and continuous mode, meaning multiple calls with history. The single-channel version can perform multichannel measurements only in one-shot mode. If you want to make multichannel measurements in continuous mode, use the multichannel version of this VI.
The single-channel version of this VI maintains internal state information for a single channel only. Calling the single-channel version to process another channel without using the restart averaging control to clear the history results in an unexpected behavior of this VI. The unexpected behavior results from the VI passing the internal state information from one channel to another.
export mode
—
restart averaging (F)
—
time signal
—
window
—
error in (no error)
—
averaging parameters
—
averaging mode
—
window parameter
—
Power Spectrum / PSD
—
f0
—
magnitude
—
averaging done
—
error out
—