The notions of Instantaneous Phase and Instantaneous Frequency are important concepts in Signal Processing that occur in the context of the representation and analysis of time-varying signals [1]. In signal processing, the instantaneous phase (or "local phase" or simply "phase") of a complex-valued function is the real-valued function:
-
(see arg function)
And for a real-valued signal it is determined from the signal's analytic representation,
:
When is constrained to an interval such as
or
it is called the wrapped phase. Otherwise it is called unwrapped, which is a continuous function of argument
assuming
is a continuous function of
Unless otherwise indicated, the continuous form should be inferred.
from wiki