Eliminating the picket fence effect of the fast Fourier transform

The canonical fast Fourier transform (FFT) is afflicted by the picket fence effect (PFE). This can be ascribed to the simplification caused by viewing non-parametrically. For a periodic signal composed of frequency well-separated tones, a complex formula for retrieving a tone's frequency can be derived in light of the parametric relationship among the FFT spectral lines around each tone's main-lobe. Compared to the modulus-based interpolated FFT, this complex spectrum-based approach is less sensitive to spectral leakage. The frequency, amplitude and phase retrieving formulas are presented for the generalized Hamming window, which is used frequently in physics but seldom mentioned in the interpolated FFT literature. Numerical simulation shows that the FPE can be eliminated efficiently by this approach.