Triangle wave

A triangular wave or triangle wave is a non-sinusoidal waveform named for its triangular shape. It is a periodic, piecewise linear, continuous real function.

Triangle wave
A bandlimited triangle wave pictured in the time domain (top) and frequency domain (bottom). The fundamental is at 220 Hz (A3).
General information
General definition	$x(t)=4\left\vert t-\left\lfloor t+3/4\right\rfloor +1/4\right\vert -1$
Fields of application	Electronics, synthesizers
Domain, codomain and image
Domain	$\mathbb {R}$
Codomain	$\left[-1,1\right]$
Basic features
Parity	Odd
Period	1
Specific features
Root	$\left\{{\tfrac {n}{2}}\right\},n\in \mathbb {Z}$
Derivative	Square wave
Fourier series	$x(t)=-{\frac {8}{{\pi }^{2}}}\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {{\left(-1\right)}^{k}}{\left(2k-1\right)^{2}}}\sin \left(2\pi \left(2k-1\right)t\right)$

Like a square wave, the triangle wave contains only odd harmonics. However, the higher harmonics roll off much faster than in a square wave (proportional to the inverse square of the harmonic number as opposed to just the inverse).

Definitions

Sine, square, triangle, and sawtooth waveforms

Definition

A triangle wave of period p that spans the range [0, 1] is defined as $$x(t)=2\left|{\frac {t}{p}}-\left\lfloor {\frac {t}{p}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\right\rfloor \right|,$$ where $\lfloor \ \rfloor$ is the floor function. This can be seen to be the absolute value of a shifted sawtooth wave.

For a triangle wave spanning the range [−1, 1] the expression becomes $$x(t)=2\left|2\left({\frac {t}{p}}-\left\lfloor {\frac {t}{p}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\right\rfloor \right)\right|-1.$$

Triangle wave with amplitude = 5, period = 4

A more general equation for a triangle wave with amplitude $a$ and period $p$ using the modulo operation and absolute value is $$y(x)={\frac {4a}{p}}\left|\left(\left(x-{\frac {p}{4}}\right){\bmod {p}}\right)-{\frac {p}{2}}\right|-a.$$

For example, for a triangle wave with amplitude 5 and period 4: $$y(x)=5\left|{\bigl (}(x-1){\bmod {4}}{\bigr )}-2\right|-5.$$

A phase shift can be obtained by altering the value of the $-p/4$ term, and the vertical offset can be adjusted by altering the value of the $-a$ term.

As this only uses the modulo operation and absolute value, it can be used to simply implement a triangle wave on hardware electronics.

Note that in many programming languages, the % operator is a remainder operator (with result the same sign as the dividend), not a modulo operator; the modulo operation can be obtained by using ((x % p) + p) % p in place of x % p. In e.g. JavaScript, this results in an equation of the form 4*a/p * Math.abs((((x - p/4) % p) + p) % p - p/2) - a.

Relation to the square wave

The triangle wave can also be expressed as the integral of the square wave: $$x(t)=\int _{0}^{t}\operatorname {sgn} \left(\sin {\frac {u}{p}}\right)\,du.$$

Expression in trigonometric functions

A triangle wave with period p and amplitude a can be expressed in terms of sine and arcsine (whose value ranges from −π/2 to π/2): $$y(x)={\frac {2a}{\pi }}\arcsin \left(\sin \left({\frac {2\pi }{p}}x\right)\right).$$ The identity ${\textstyle \cos {x}=\sin \left({\frac {p}{4}}-x\right)}$ can be used to convert from a triangle "sine" wave to a triangular "cosine" wave. This phase-shifted triangle wave can also be expressed with cosine and arccosine: $$y(x)=a-{\frac {2a}{\pi }}\arccos \left(\cos \left({\frac {2\pi }{p}}x\right)\right).$$

Expressed as alternating linear functions

Another definition of the triangle wave, with range from −1 to 1 and period p, is $$x(t)={\frac {4}{p}}\left(t-{\frac {p}{2}}\left\lfloor {\frac {2t}{p}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\right\rfloor \right)(-1)^{\left\lfloor {\frac {2t}{p}}+{\frac {1}{2}}\right\rfloor }.$$

Harmonics

Animation of the additive synthesis of a triangle wave with an increasing number of harmonics. See Fourier Analysis for a mathematical description.

It is possible to approximate a triangle wave with additive synthesis by summing odd harmonics of the fundamental while multiplying every other odd harmonic by −1 (or, equivalently, changing its phase by π) and multiplying the amplitude of the harmonics by one over the square of their mode number, n (which is equivalent to one over the square of their relative frequency to the fundamental).

The above can be summarised mathematically as follows: $$x_{\text{triangle}}(t)={\frac {8}{\pi ^{2}}}\sum _{i=0}^{N-1}{\frac {(-1)^{i}}{n^{2}}}\sin(2\pi f_{0}nt),$$ where N is the number of harmonics to include in the approximation, t is the independent variable (e.g. time for sound waves), $f_{0}$ is the fundamental frequency, and i is the harmonic label which is related to its mode number by $n=2i+1$.

This infinite Fourier series converges quickly to the triangle wave as N tends to infinity, as shown in the animation.

Arc length

The arc length per period for a triangle wave, denoted by s, is given in terms of the amplitude a and period length p by $$s={\sqrt {(4a)^{2}+p^{2}}}.$$

See also

• List of periodic functions
• Sine wave
• Square wave
• Sawtooth wave
• Pulse wave
• Sound
• Triangle function
• Wave
• Zigzag

References

• Weisstein, Eric W. "Fourier Series - Triangle Wave". MathWorld.