CODEWITHSUNDEEP
matlabsignal-processingvariance
SKM
SKM

Reputation: 989

Matlab : Is the calculation of variance correct?

I am generating PRBS values taking values in [+1,-1] as

data = 2*(rand(100,1)>0.5)-1

I want to get the variance of the output and so used variance_data = var(data)

Would var() be applicable to PRBS or data taking symbols such as [+3,-3,+7,-7,+5,-5] etc?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 140

Answers (1)

giusti
giusti

Reputation: 3538

The var function works for any population, including your array of 1s and -1s.

But I'll take a wild guess that this is not what you want. Variance is only a measure of how the data spreads out of the mean. A true random generator of 1s and -1s would have a variance of 1. So if you use var, all you get is to approximate the result to 1 as you generate longer and longer sequences.

If you want to check if your random generator is good, this might help you:

How to test a random generator

For any other purposes, you probably can use var on your sequence.

Upvotes: 1

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