2828 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, NO.

8, AUGUST 2011
Improved Method for Frequency Estimation of
Sampled Sinusoidal Signals Without Iteration
Soon Young Park, Young Sub Song, Hang Joon Kim, and Jongsik Park, Member, IEEE
AbstractThis paper presents a method for estimating the
signal frequency of sampled sinusoidal signals, which does not
require any iteration for the frequency search. A nonitera-
tive method of frequency estimation was already developed by
Zhang et al., where an analytical expression for the signal fre-
quency is obtained using the differences between the neighboring
input data. However, this method is very susceptible to additive
noise. This paper extends the algorithm of Zhang et al. to main-
tain the same signal-to-noise ratio as with the traditional four-
parameter estimation method that requires iterations for the
signal frequency search. Unfortunately, the proposed method is
unable to estimate the accurate frequency in the case of an innite
number of data points when noises are added to the signal. From
a noise analysis, it was found that the average frequency estima-
tion error becomes zero when using a (2/3) phase interval to
calculate the signal difference. Numerical simulation results show
that the frequency estimation error when Gaussian noise is added
to the input data is about 13% higher than the square root of the
CramerRao bound. An additional 6% error is also added when
the phase interval for frequency estimation deviates 10% from
(2/3). Furthermore, it was found that the effect of harmonic
components on the frequency estimation error can be minimized
when the phase interval is close to (2/3), and the total number
of data sample covers several signal periods or truncated close to
an integer multiple of the signal period. As a result, the frequency
estimation with the proposed method is more than 40 times more
accurate than that with the IEEE-1057 method when the harmonic
components are added to the input signal, which is conrmed by
numerical simulations.
Index TermsCramerRao bound (CRB), frequency estima-
tion, IEEE Standard 1057, least-square method.
I. INTRODUCTION
E
XTRACTING the frequency, phase, magnitude, and direct
current (dc) offset from the sampled data of sinusoidal
signals has already been standardized in IEEE Standard 1057
[1], which involves a four-parameter search to minimize the
sum of the squares of the difference between the estimated
signal and the input data. By differentiating the sum with each
parameter, four equations are obtained. While the equations
Manuscript received September 8, 2010; revised November 13, 2010;
accepted December 24, 2010. Date of publication April 5, 2011; date of current
version July 13, 2011. The Associate Editor coordinating the review process for
this paper was Dr. Rik Pintelon.
S. Y. Park and Y. S. Song are with the Articial Intelligence Laboratory,
College of Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 702-701,
Korea (e-mail: sypark@ailab.knu.ac.kr; yssong@ailab.knu.ac.kr).
H. J. Kim is with the College of Engineering, Kyungpook National Univer-
sity, Daegu 702-701, Korea (e-mail: kimhj@knu.ac.kr).
J. Park is with the College of Engineering, Kyungpook National University,
Daegu 702-701, Korea, and also with Elecs Company, Daegu 701-050, Korea
(e-mail: jspark@elecscom.com).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TIM.2011.2121231
for the phase, magnitude, and dc offset are all linear and can
be analytically expressed, the equation for the frequency is
nonlinear, requiring an iteration method. In the IEEE Standard
1057, closed-form expressions for the dc offset and magnitude,
in terms of the frequency and phase, are inserted into the
remaining two equations, and the frequency and phase are then
searched for iteratively in 2-D parameter space. Since the equa-
tion for the phase is also linear and a closed-form expression
is available, the search can be performed in only the frequency
domain [2]. Several papers have already described the behavior
of the IEEE Standard 1057 four-parameter t algorithm [3],
[4]. In addition, Jenq [5] developed a method to estimate the
frequency and phase when the magnitude and dc offset are
known. In this case, the phase of the sampled sinusoidal can
be calculated as a function of time. Plus, in a subsequent paper
[6], they proposed a method for estimating the magnitude and
phase using the BlackmanHarris window function. However,
the accuracy of the four-parameter extraction is limited by the
accuracy of the window function, and many periods of signal
data record are required.
Meanwhile, Zhang et al. [7] developed a method that does
not require iteration for the frequency estimation. In their
method, a closed-form expression for the signal frequency is
derived using the differences between the neighboring input
data. When no noise is added to the input data, the estimated
frequency exactly coincides with the signal frequency. When
noise is added to the input data, the frequency is estimated
using the least-square method. However, the accuracy of the
estimated frequency is very susceptible to additive noise, as the
frequency is expressed using the differences between the neigh-
boring data. Kusljevic has also recently introduced noniterative
methods for estimating the magnitude and frequency [8], [9],
where the parameters are extracted by observing the sum or
sum of the squares of the neighboring input data. However,
these methods are also susceptible to additive noise, as with
the method of Zhang et al.
Accordingly, this paper extends the mathematical formula
developed by Zhang et al. [7]. A closed-form expression of the
signal frequency is obtained from four data using an arbitrary
xed interval. Since the differences of the sinusoidal signal
with an arbitrary xed phase difference are used to calculate
the signal frequency, the signal-to-noise ratio of the terms for
estimation can be adjusted to optimize the efciency of the
parameter estimation.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
Section II outlines the frequency estimation algorithm used
to obtain the exact signal frequency from sampled sinusoidal
data, which does not require iteration for the frequency search.
0018-9456/$26.00 2011 IEEE
PARK et al.: METHOD FOR FREQUENCY ESTIMATION OF SAMPLED SINUSOIDAL SIGNALS WITHOUT ITERATION 2829
Section III then describes the least-square method for the
frequency estimation. The behavior of the estimated frequency
due to random noise is derived using a high number of sampled
data, and this behavior is then used to optimize the conditions
in order to minimize the effects of noise. The accuracy of
the frequency estimation is analyzed when adding harmonic
components to the input signal in Section IV. Finally, numerical
simulation results conrming the effectiveness of the proposed
method are presented and discussed in Section V.
II. FREQUENCY ESTIMATION WITHOUT ITERATION
This section extends the algorithm developed by Zhang et al.
[1]. Let us dene y(n) as the nth input signal data sample, i.e.,
y(n)=D+Asin(
o
nT +)+e(n) n=0, 1, 2, . . . , (N 1)
(1)
where
o
is the angular frequency of the signal, T(= 1/fs) is
the sampling time, D is the dc offset, A is the magnitude, is
the phase, and e(n) is the additive noise. When considering the
case without noise, i.e., e(n) = 0, the use of a trigonometric
identity, i.e., sin() sin() = 2 cos( + /2) sin( /2),
allows the following deduction:
y(n)y(nk)=2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
.
(2)
Using the same method, we can derive the following
expression:
{y(n + k) y(n)}+{y(n k) y(n 2k)}
= 4Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(k
o
T). (3)
Dividing (3) by (2), we get
cos(k
o
T) =
1
2
{y(n+k)y(n)}+{y(nk)y(n2k)}
y(n)y(nk)
.
(4)
In (4), k is any integer ranging from 1 to N/3. Thus, the exact
signal frequency can be obtained using (4) for any values of n
and k, as long as the signal indices in (4) are between 0 and
N 1, and there is no additive noise in the input data. When
the noise term e(n) is included in the input data expressed in
(1), then (4) is not valid, and the estimated frequency using the
right-hand side of (4) deviates from the true signal frequency.
When the noise term is included, (2) can be expressed as
y(n) y(n k) = 2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
+{e(n) e(n k)} . (5)
In addition, (3) can be expressed as
{y(n + k) y(n)} +{y(n k) y(n 2k)}
= 4Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(k
o
T)
+{e(n + k) e(n) + e(n k) e(n 2k)} . (6)
The estimated signal angular frequency using (4) when
the noise term e(n) is included in the input data y(n) can be
expressed in (7), shown at the bottom of the page.
The rst term in (5) is due to the input sinusoidal data, and
the root mean square (RMS) value of this signal is equal to

2A| sin((k/2)
o
T)|. The second term in (5) is due to the
added noise, and the RMS value of this term is equal to

2,
where is the square root of the variance of the input noise
e(n). Therefore, the signal-to-noise ratio of the denominator
of (7) is equal to (A/)| sin((k/2)
o
T)|. Using the same
method, the signal-to-noise ratio of the numerator of (7) can
be expressed as (A/)| sin((k/2)
o
T) cos(k
o
T)|.
When k is small, the signal-to-noise ratio is also small and
proportional to k, which results in a large deviation of the
estimated frequency from the actual signal frequency. This can
be qualitatively understood as follows: In the proposed method,
the frequency is estimated by observing the behavior of the
input signal differences using a xed interval. When k is small,
the signal difference is also small, and the estimation error
induced by the noise term becomes large. In [7], the analytical
expression for
o
was only derived for the case of k = 1, and
the theory for the frequency estimation was also only developed
for that case, thereby severely limiting the performance of the
frequency estimation when noise is added to the sampled data.
III. EFFECTS OF NOISE ON ACCURACY
OF FREQUENCY ESTIMATION
Since the signal frequency expressed in (4) is obtained by
analyzing the signal difference, it is very susceptible to additive
noise when k is small. In other words, the signal for the
frequency estimation is actually the difference of the input data,
instead of the input data itself.
An optimal estimate of the signal frequency can be obtained
using the least-square method. Dene E() as
E() =
Nk1

n=2k
{cos(kT)a(n) b(n)}
2
(8)
where a(n) = y(n) y(n k), and b(n) = (1/2)[{y(n +
k) y(n)} +{y(n k) y(n 2k)}].
The number of summation terms in (8) is (N 3k). An
optimal estimate of the frequency can then be obtained by
cos(k T) =
Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(k
o
T) +
1
4
{e(n + k) e(n) + e(n k) e(n 2k)}
Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
+
1
2
{e(n) e(n k)}
(7)
2830 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 8, AUGUST 2011
nding the value that minimizes E(), i.e.,
E

=0 = 2kT sin(k T)

Nk1

n=2k
_
cos(k T)a
2
(n) a(n)b(n)
_
(9)
cos(k T) =

Nk1
n=2k
a(n)b(n)

Nk1
n=2k
a
2
(n)
. (10)
Now, let us analyze how noise affects the accuracy of the signal
estimation. When including the noise term e(n) in y(n), the
denominator of (10) can be expressed as
Nk1

n=2k
a
2
(n)
=
Nk1

n=2k
_
2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ e(n) e(n 1)
_
2
= 4A
2
Nk1

n=2k
cos
2
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
+
Nk1

n=2k
e
2
(n) +
Nk1

n=2k
e
2
(n 1)
+ 4A
Nk1

n=2k
cos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
{e(n) e(n 1)}
2
Nk1

n=2k
e(n)e(n 1). (11)
When N is large, the rst term in (11) can be approximated as
2A
2
(N 3k) sin
2
((k/2)
o
T) since the average of the square
of the cosine is equal to 0.5. The second and third terms are
both equal to (N 3k)
2
, where
2
is the variance of the input
noise e(n). Meanwhile, the fourth and fth terms in (11) are
proportional to
_
(N 3k) and become much smaller than the
other three terms when N is large. Therefore, when N is large,
(11) can be approximated as
Nk1

n=2k
a
2
(n)2(N3k)
_
A
2
sin
2
_
1
2
k
o
T
_
+
2
_
. (12)
The numerator of (10) is
Nk1

n=2k
a(n)b(n)
=
Nk1

n=2k
_
2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ e(n) e(n k)
_

1
2
_
4Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(
o
T) + e(n + k)
e(n) + e(n k) e(n 2k)
_
= 4A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(
o
T)

Nk1

n=2k
cos
2
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_

1
2

Nk1

n=2k
e
2
(n)
1
2

Nk1

n=2k
e
2
(n k)
+
Nk1

n=2k
2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
{e(n + k) e(n) + e(n k) e(n 2k)}
+
Nk1

n=2k
2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(
o
T) {e(n) e(n k)}
+
Nk1

n=2k
{e(n) e(n k)}
{e(n + k) e(n) + e(n k) e(n 2k)} . (13)
When N is large, the rst term is approximately equal
to 2A
2
sin((k/2)
o
T) cos(k
o
T)(N 3k). The second and
third terms are both equal to (
2
/2)(N 3k). The other
terms are proportional to
_
(N 3k) and smaller than the rst
three terms. Therefore
Nk1

n=2k
a(n)b(n) (N 3k)

_
2A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(k
o
T)
2
_
. (14)
From (12) and (14), we get
cos(k T)
cos(k
o
T)

2
2A
2
sin
2
(
k
2

o
T)
1 +

2
A
2
sin
2
(
k
2

o
T)
. (15)
Using the relation sin
2
((1/2)k
o
T) = 1 cos(k
o
T)/2, (15)
can be simplied as
cos(k T) =
cos
2
(k
o
T) cos(k
o
T) +

2
A
2
cos(k
o
T)
_
1 + 2

2
A
2
_ . (16)
Equation (16) implies that, for a nite variance of the input
noise, the estimated frequency is not equal to the actual signal
frequency when N is innite. In other words, the estimated sig-
nal frequency is biased. Equation (16) implies that the estimated
frequency is equal to the actual signal frequency
o
for any
value of when k
o
T is equal to (2/3) and N is innite.
PARK et al.: METHOD FOR FREQUENCY ESTIMATION OF SAMPLED SINUSOIDAL SIGNALS WITHOUT ITERATION 2831
However, in practical applications of the proposed method,
the deviation of the estimated signal frequency from the true
signal frequency results from an improper k value and nite
value of N.
The behavior of the frequency estimation according to IEEE
Standard 1057 was already studied by Andersson and Handel
[10]. When the estimated frequency is close to the input signal
frequency, the sum of the squares of the difference between
the input signal and the estimated signal with the extracted
parameters V () was derived as
V ( )
N1

n=0
_
y(n)
_

D +

Asin( nT +

)
__
2

2
(N + 3) +
A
2
N
3
24
(
o
)
3
(17)
where

D,

A, , and

are the estimated dc offset, magnitude,
angular frequency, and phase, respectively. Equation (17) im-
plies that the accuracy of the frequency estimation error can
be arbitrarily small when the number of data points N is large
enough.
From the analysis so far, we can qualitatively see that there
are two factors that need to be considered to optimize k for the
frequency estimation. First, we need to keep k
o
T for the
largest signal-to-noise ratio. Second, we need to keep k
o
T
(2/3) to minimize the bias effect introduced by the random
noise. Equation (16) shows that the optimal k value is the one
that satises the relation k
o
T (2/3) as closely as possible,
which is conrmed by the numerical simulations explained in
Section V. As will be shown in Section IV, this k value is also
optimal for minimizing the frequency estimation error due to
the harmonic components in the input signal.
Systematically, the optimal k to estimate the signal frequency
can be determined using the discrete Fourier transform (DFT).
The DFT of the input data y(n) can be expressed as
A
m
=
1
N
N1

n=0
y(n) exp
_

j2nm
N
_
, m = 1, 2, . . . N 1.
(18)
A coarse estimate of the signal frequency is obtained by
nding the integer m
o
at which |A
m
| has the maximum value
[11], i.e.,

o

2m
o
NT
. (19)
The optimal k that satises the relation k
o
T = 2/3 is then
the nearest integer to N/3m
o
.
When the noise in the input data is not large, the optimal k
can be easily determined by counting the number of input data
between the two maxima of the input signal and dividing this
number by three.
IV. EFFECTS OF HARMONICS
This section examines the effects of the harmonic compo-
nents on the frequency estimation. Consider the case when the
mth harmonic data is added to the input data y(n) i.e.,
y(n) = D + Asin(
o
nT + ) + H sin(m
o
nT + ) (20)
where H and are the magnitude and phase of the mth
harmonic component, respectively.
Then, a(n) and b(n) can be expressed as
a(n)=2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ 2H cos
__
n
k
2
_
m
o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2
m
o
T
_
(21)
b(n)=2Acos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
cos(k
o
T) + 2H cos
__
n
k
2
_
m
o
T +
_
sin
_
k
2
m
o
T
_
cos(km
o
T). (22)
Then, the estimated frequency using (10) becomes (23),
shown at the bottom of the page, where
=
Nk1

n=2k
cos
2
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
(24)
=
Nk1

n=2k
cos
2
__
n
k
2
_
m
o
T +
_
(25)
=
Nk1

n=2k
cos
__
n
k
2
_

o
T +
_
cos
__
n
k
2
_
m
o
T +
_
. (26)
From (23), we can intuitively understand that the frequency
estimation becomes more accurate when the ratio of H to
cos(k T)
=

Nk1
n=2k
a(n)b(n)

Nk1
n=2k
a
2
(n)
=
cos(k
o
T)A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
+cos(km
o
T)H
2
sin
2
_
k
2
m
o
T
_
+{cos(k
o
T)+cos(km
o
T)}AH sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
sin
_
k
2
m
o
T
_

A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ H
2
sin
2
_
k
2
m
o
T
_
+ 2AH sin
_
k
2

o
T
_
sin
_
k
2
m
o
T
_

(23)
2832 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 8, AUGUST 2011
Fig. 1. Comparison of the estimated frequency error between the nu-
merical simulation results and the theory for large N. The input data
were y(n) = 1.0 + 1.0 sin((2/200.7)n + (/4)) + e(n), with N =
100 000 and = 0.01.
A decreases. From the detailed analysis, we can improve the
frequency estimation accuracy for the same H/A as follows:
Let us observe the behavior of the frequency estimation when
the harmonic signal is added to the input data, and k is chosen
such that k
o
T (2/3), and N is roughly equal to an integer
multiple of the signal period. In this case, is much smaller
than and since the number of the summation in (24)(26)
is N 3k, which is also close to an integer multiple of the
signal period. When N contains several number of signal data
periods, the magnitude of is also much smaller than and
. This is because the average value of the arguments of the
summations for and are equal to 1/2, which is 0 for .
When is neglected, (23) can be approximated as (27), shown
at the bottom of the page. If m is not an integer multiple of
three, then cos(k
o
T) cos(km
o
T) since k
o
T (2/3).
In this case, (27) can be simplied as cos(k T) cos(k
o
T)
for any value ofH. When m is an integer multiple of three, then
sin
2
((k/2)m
o
T) 0. The second term of the denominator
and numerator of (27) becomes zero, and we also get the
relation cos(k T) cos(k
o
T).
In conclusion, when the total data sampling period is roughly
equal to an integer multiple of the signal period and the phase
interval for the frequency estimation is around (2/3), the
frequency estimation is not affected by the harmonic compo-
nents, and the effect of the random noise is also simultaneously
minimized. This will be conrmed in Section V.
V. NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND DISCUSSION
To conrmthe theory developed in Sections IIIV, numerical
simulations were performed. Fig. 1 shows the numerical simu-
lation results of the frequency estimation accuracy versus k for
a large value of N. The signal frequency was estimated using
(10). During the simulation, the following parameters were
Fig. 2. RMSE(

f) versus k. The input data were y(n) = 1.0 + 1.0
sin((2/200.7)n + /4) + e(n), with N = 1000 and = 0.01.
assumed: N = 100 000, A = 1.0, = /4, f
o
T = 1/200.7,
and = 0.01. As shown, the numerical simulation results for
the estimated frequency coincided very well with the theoretical
results in (16) for a large value of N, thereby validating the
theory developed in Sections II and III. However, as shown in
Fig. 1, the accuracy of the estimated frequency was very poor
when k was small as the estimated signal frequency was ob-
tained using the difference of the input signals, as shown in (4).
The signal-to-noise ratio for the estimation was proportional
to sin((k/2)
o
T). In addition, the best frequency estimation
when using the least-square method was achieved when k was
equal to 67, corresponding to k
o
T (2.003/3).
To observe the accuracy of the method proposed in this
paper, we dened the RMS of the estimated frequency error
RMSE(

f) as
RMSE(

f) =

_
1
10 000
10000

l=1
(

f
l
f
o
)
2
(28)
where

f is the estimated frequency with the lth seed value for
the Gaussian noise generation.
Fig. 2 shows the numerical simulation results for RMSE(

f)
versus k when N = 1000. The other parameters for the input
data were the same as those used in Fig. 1. The minimum
RMSE(

f), 2.77 10
7
f
s
, was obtained when k = 67. The
CramerRao bound (CRB) of the estimated frequency using
IEEE Standard 1057, i.e., CRB(

f), is derived in [4], [10], [11]
CRB(

f)
6
2

2
T
2
N(N
2
1)A
2
. (29)
The calculated
_
CRB(

f) using (29) was 2.46 10
7
f
s
.
The frequency estimation error for the proposed method was
13% higher than the theoretical lower limit, i.e.,
_
CRB(

f).
cos(k T)
cos(k
o
T)A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ cos(km
o
T)H
2
sin
2
_
k
2
m
o
T
_

A
2
sin
2
_
k
2

o
T
_
+ H
2
sin
2
_
k
2
m
o
T
_

(27)
PARK et al.: METHOD FOR FREQUENCY ESTIMATION OF SAMPLED SINUSOIDAL SIGNALS WITHOUT ITERATION 2833
Fig. 3. RMSE(

f) versus N. The input data were y(n) = 1.0 + 1.0
sin((2/200.7)n + /4) + e(n), with = 0.01.
Fig. 4. RMSE(

f) versus . The input data were (n) = 1.0 + 1.0
sin((2/200.7)n + /4) + e(n), with N = 1000.
The frequency estimation error was less than 20% higher than
the
_
CRB(

f) when (1.8/3) k
o
T (2.2/3). A numer-
ical simulation was also performed to obtain the RMSE(

f)
using the IEEE-1057 method, which searches for the frequency
that gives the minimum sum of the squares for the difference
between the estimated signal and the input data. RMSE(

f)
found using this method was 2.6 10
7
f
s
for the same
input data parameters.
Figs. 3 and 4 show the numerical simulation results for
RMSE(

f) versus N and when k = 67. For comparison, we
also show the
_
CRB(

f) and the simulation results of obtained
with the IEEE-1057 method.
Fig. 5 shows the RMSE(

f) versus k when adding harmonic
noise to the input signal. The input data assumed was
y(n) = 1.0 + 1.0 sin((2/200.7)n + /4) + 0.1
sin((4/200.7)n)+0.2sin((6/200.7)n+(/3)). (30)
The minimum RMSE(

f) was 2.57 10
7
f
s
when k =
67, which was the nearest integer to make k
o
T (2/3). The
numerical simulation was also performed using the IEEE-1057
Fig. 5. Frequency estimation error versus k when adding the harmonic
components to the input data.
Fig. 6. Comparison of RMSE(

f) when using the proposed method
and the IEEE-1057 method for different levels of harmonic distortion.
The input data were y(n) = 1.0 + 1.0 sin((2/200.7)n + /4) + S2
sin((4/200.7)n + (/3)) with N = 1000.
Fig. 7. Frequency estimation error versus k for different ADC bits.
method. The frequency estimation error with the same y(n), as
shown in (30), was 1.2 10
5
f
s
. Thus, the frequency esti-
mation method proposed in this paper was much more accurate
than the IEEE-1057 method for harmonic noise. Fig. 6 shows a
comparison of the RMSE(

f) when using the proposed method
and the IEEE-1057 method for different levels of harmonic
distortion.
Fig. 7 shows the frequency estimation error versus k when
performing an analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) with 6, 8,
and 12 bits. The theoretical results using (16) are also shown.
2834 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INSTRUMENTATION AND MEASUREMENT, VOL. 60, NO. 8, AUGUST 2011

2
=
2
/12 was used for the quantization noise, where =
ADC range/(2
ADCbits
1). When using an 8-bit analog-to-
digital conversion, the frequency estimation error was less than
10 ppm.
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper has extended the formula developed by
Zhang et al., which does not require any iteration to estimate
the signal frequency of a sampled sinusoidal signal. A closed-
form expression for the signal frequency can be accurately
obtained by taking the difference of the input signal. By se-
lecting the phase difference for the frequency estimation, the
same signal-to-noise ratio was maintained for estimating the
signal frequency as with the traditional four-parameter search.
From a noise analysis, it was found that the estimated frequency
was unbiased when the phase interval used to estimate the
frequency was (2/3). In addition, the estimated frequency
error was about 13% higher than the square root of the CRB.
Furthermore, the frequency estimation error was more than
40 times lower than that with the IEEE-1057 method in the case
of noise from harmonic distortion when the phase interval is
close to (2/3) and the total data number covers several signal
periods or truncated close to an integer multiple of the signal
period. The theories presented in this paper were all conrmed
by numerical simulations.
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Soon Young Park was born in Florida, USA, in 1982. She received the
B.S. degree in computer engineering from Keimyung University, Daegu, Korea,
in 2005, the M.S. degree in computer engineering from Kyungpook National
University, Daegu, in 2007, where she is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree in the Department of Computer Engineering.
Her research interests include articial intelligence in measurement and
image processing.
Young Sub Song was born in Korea in 1979. He received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in computer engineering from Kyungpook National University,
Daegu, Korea, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the
Department of Computer Engineering.
His research interests include articial intelligence in planning and
measurement.
Hang Joon Kim was born in Korea in 1954. He received the B.S. degree in
electrical engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1977,
the M.S. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea, in 1979, and the Ph.D.
degree in electronics from Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan, in 1997.
From 1979 to 1983, he was a Full-Time Lecturer with the Department of
Computer Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, where
he was an Assistant and Associate Professor from 1983 to 1994. Since October
1994, he has been with the Kyungpook National University as a Professor.
His research interests include articial intelligence.
Jongsik Park (M10) was born in Korea in 1953. He received the B.S. degree
in physics from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, the M.S. degree in
physics from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from University of Florida,
Gainesville Florida.
In 1978, he joined the Department of Computer Engineering, Kyungpook
National University, as a Faculty Member, where he is currently a Professor
in the Department of Electronics. In 1997, he established the Elecs Company,
Daegu, Korea, which specializes in the development and sales of testing
systems for semiconductor devices and display modules, and has been working
as the Chief Executive Ofcer. His research interests include digital signal
processing and computer-aided testing systems.