Matlab Prepare Signal Data Agent Skill

Prepare Signal Data

> Look in Signal Processing Toolbox first. The conditioning, labeling,

> splitting, framing, and partitioning helpers here live in Signal Processing

> Toolbox — not in Stats & ML Toolbox or generic-MATLAB string utilities.

The arc: condition a raw signal (clean it) -> load a folder into a

datastore -> label -> split / frame -> hand off to trainnet. Each

stage is a workflow file; this page routes you to the right one.

When to Use

• Cleaning a single signal before analysis: fill gaps, remove drift, deoutlier,

denoise, put it on a uniform time base, align multiple channels.

• Loading / preparing signal data for ML training: datastores, labels from

filenames or folders, stratified splits, framing, parallel processing.

• Structured labeling: labeledSignalSet for Signal Labeler, all label types.

When NOT to Use

• Raw .wav audio classification with Audio Toolbox available.

audioDatastore is the canonical path (this skill's custom-ReadFcn

workflow handles .wav only when Audio Toolbox is absent —

references/wf-custom-readfcn.md).

• Frequency-selective filter DESIGN (band isolation, notch, custom FIR/IIR)

— see the matlab-design-digital-filter skill. This skill's conditioning is

about cleaning, not designing filters.

• Computing per-frame features (RMS, crest factor, spectral / bandwidth,

time-frequency features) from an already-conditioned signal — see the

matlab-extract-signal-features skill. This skill's framesig / framelbl

are for manual per-window labeling / supervision, not for deriving a feature

table; the signal*FeatureExtractor objects window internally and emit the

table.

Best practices

• Deliverable is a runnable .m script the user can save, version, and

re-run — not workspace state.

• Prefer the highest-level function that does the job. detrend /

smoothdata / fillmissing / resample read cleanly and are easy for a

non-expert to follow. Drop to a lower-level / more-configurable path

(designfilt + filtfilt, a hand-built AR model, a named primitive) only

when you need control the high-level call cannot give, or when the user asks.

Readability first; escalate to low-level for necessity, not by default.

• The high-level call usually exposes the control you think you need. In

particular smoothdata(x, "sgolay", fl) takes the frame length fl as an

argument — it does NOT hide it — so prefer it over calling sgolayfilt

directly. Reach for sgolayfilt only for what the dispatcher genuinely

lacks (derivative output via dn, or an unusual polynomial order).

0. Common reflexes

If your first instinct is one of these, the canonical replacement is one row away.

| Reflex | Canonical | Detail |

|---|---|---|

| Hand-design a highpass/designfilt to remove a smooth drift | detrend(x, n) — escalate n = 1 -> 2 -> 3 before reaching for a filter; polynomial detrend has unity passband gain | references/fn-detrend.md |

| Invent a gap-filler (regularizeNaNs, inpaintn — not real) | fillmissing (interp) for short gaps; fillgaps (SPT, AR) for long gaps in oscillatory signals | references/wf-repair-missing.md |

| Hand-roll retime + shift + retime + concat to align channels | synchronize(A, B, ...) — one call to a shared grid | references/wf-align-channels.md |

| Custom ReadFcn for a .csv | signalDatastore default reader + SignalVariableNames | references/fn-signaldatastore.md |

| cvpartition for a datastore split | splitlabels + subset(ds, idx{k}) | references/fn-splitlabels.md |

| regexp / extractBefore / fileparts for labels from filenames | filenames2labels(sds, Extract=...) | references/fn-filenames2labels.md |

| regexp / nested fileparts for labels from subfolders | folders2labels(sds.Files) | references/fn-folders2labels.md |

| Manual framing loop with (i-1)*hop+1 | framesig(x, fl, OverlapLength=...) | references/wf-frame-and-label.md |

| Manual ROI-to-frame vote with containers.Map | framelbl(rois, ...) | references/wf-frame-and-label.md |

| for loop load(file) to read in-file label variables | signalDatastore(folder, SignalVariableNames=["x","label"]) | references/fn-signaldatastore.md |

| signalMask when you need Signal Labeler interop | labeledSignalSet with ROI labels (signalMask can't import) | references/fn-labeledsignalset.md |

| signalLabeler(lss) (pass the set as an arg) | Launch bare signalLabeler (zero args), then Import -> From Workspace or From File | references/wf-label-and-export.md |

> SPT-specialized functions exist — reach for them, don't reinvent.

> fillgaps (AR gap fill), medfilt1 / hampel (impulse handling),

> sgolayfilt / smoothdata(...,"sgolay") (feature-preserving smoothing) are

> in Signal Processing Toolbox.

1. Workflows

Each workflow file is the entry point and lists the functions it uses. Start here.

| Workflow | Use when | Reference |

|---|---|---|

| Repair missing samples | NaN gaps / dropouts to fill. | references/wf-repair-missing.md |

| Detrend, smooth, deoutlier | Drift, spikes, and/or broadband noise on one signal (smoothing/denoising lives here). | references/wf-detrend-smooth-deoutlier.md |

| Align multi-rate / offset channels | Several channels onto a shared time base. | references/wf-align-channels.md |

| Put one channel on a uniform rate | One channel -> uniform grid at a chosen rate: jittery timestamps to regularize, OR already uniform but the wrong rate to resample. | references/wf-uniform-rate.md |

| Wavelet denoising (escalation) | Non-stationary/multi-scale noise a tuned sgolayfilt can't remove; wdenoise (Wavelet TB). | references/wf-denoise.md |

| Envelope extraction | Amplitude outline (AM demod, peak hull) — not cleaning. | references/wf-envelope.md |

| Load + label + split | Folder of files -> datastore for training. | references/wf-load-and-split.md |

| Frame long signals + per-frame labels | Long signals, per-window supervision. | references/wf-frame-and-label.md |

| Label + export (all label types) | Structured labels (attribute/ROI/point/TF-ROI), export to Signal Labeler / DL. | references/wf-label-and-export.md |

| Parallel processing across a parpool | Per-signal work across workers. | references/wf-parallel-process.md |

| Custom ReadFcn (only when needed) | Format isn't .mat / .csv, or has a metadata prelude. | references/wf-custom-readfcn.md |

| Hand-off to trainnet | Datastore ready; shape for trainnet / combine. | references/wf-handoff-to-dl.md |

> Each workflow file names the fn- reference pages for the functions it uses;

> there is no separate function index — enter through the workflow that matches

> your task, or the reflex table above.

2. Ordering when a signal needs several conditioning steps

The governing principle (this is the real rule): order the steps so an

earlier operation does not corrupt the input to a later one. Spikes bias

least-squares fits and get smeared by filters/resamplers; an un-removed trend

gets averaged into the signal by a smoother; most operations choke on NaN.

Reason from that for the signal in front of you — do not follow a fixed chain

blindly.

Default heuristic (a good starting order, not a universal law):

outliers -> detrend -> smooth, with fill and align placed by the principle above.

• outliers -> detrend -> smooth is the verified core: remove spikes before

a polynomial detrend (a spike biases the fit) and before a smoother (a

smoother spreads the spike across its window); detrend before smooth so the

smoother isn't averaging across a trend.

• Fill NaN before any step that can't handle missing data (detrend,

filters, most smoothers).

• Align / resample: putting a signal on a new grid (retime/synchronize)

*creates* NaN at non-overlapping times, so fill after aligning. BUT if the

signal has spikes, deoutlier *before* resampling — resample's anti-alias

filter will smear an un-removed spike. So align-vs-outliers order depends on

the signal; the principle decides, not a fixed sequence.

Not every signal needs every step — identify which apply, order them by the

principle, and each workflow file has an off-ramp if your problem is actually a

different family.

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