Sparse Fast Fourier Transform by downsampling

Sparse Fast Fourier Transform (sFFT) [1][2], has been recently proposed to outperform FFT in reducing computational complexity. Assume that an input signal of length N in the frequency domain is K-sparse, where K ≤ N. sFFT costs O(K logN) instead of O(N logN) in FFT. In this paper, a new fast sFFT algorithm is proposed and costs O(K logK) averagely without any operations being related to N. The idea is to downsample the original input signal at the beginning. Subsequent processing operates under downsampled signals, which length is proportional to O(K). However, downsampling possibly leads to “aliasing.” By shift theorem of DFT, the aliasing problem can be formulated as the “Moment-preserving problem.” In addition, a top-down iterative strategy combined with different downsampling factors further saves computational costs. Complexity analysis and experimental results show that our method outperforms FFT and sFFT.