FFT padding to power of 2

1. Are FFTs limited to sizes that are powers of 2?
2. What is padding in FFT?
3. Does zero padding improve FFT resolution?
4. Why zero padding is needed in FFT?

Are FFTs limited to sizes that are powers of 2?

1.6 Are FFTs limited to sizes that are powers of 2? No. The most common and familiar FFTs are “radix 2”. However, other radices are sometimes used, which are usually small numbers less than 10.

What is padding in FFT?

``Zero-padding'' means adding additional zeros to a sample of data (after the data has been windowed, if applicable). For example, you may have 1023 data points, but you might want to run a 1024 point FFT or even a 2048 point FFT.

Does zero padding improve FFT resolution?

Zero padding enables you to obtain more accurate amplitude estimates of resolvable signal components. On the other hand, zero padding does not improve the spectral (frequency) resolution of the DFT. The resolution is determined by the number of samples and the sample rate.

Why zero padding is needed in FFT?

In addition to making the total number of samples a power of two so that faster computation is made possible by using the fast Fourier transform (FFT), zero padding can lead to an interpolated FFT result, which can produce a higher display resolution.