Digital signal processing

Digital signal processing (DSP) is the study of signals in a digital representation and the processing methods of these signals. DSP and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing. DSP has three major subfields: audio signal processing, digital image processing and speech processing.

Since the goal of DSP is usually to measure or filter continuous real-world analog signals, the first step is usually to convert the signal from an analog to a digital form, by using an analog to digital converter. Often, the required output signal is another analog output signal, which requires a digital to analog converter.

The algorithms required for DSP are sometimes performed using specialized computers, digital signal processors (also abbreviated DSP). These process signals in real time. They are optimized for DSP computations.

Contents

DSP Domains

In DSP, engineers usually study digital signals in one of the following domains: time domain (one-dimensional signals), spatial domain (multidimensional signals), frequency domain, autocorrelation domain, and wavelet domains. They choose the domain in which to process a signal by making an educated guess (or by trying different possibilities) as to which domain best represents the essential characteristics of the signal. A sequence of samples from a measuring device produces a time or spatial domain representation, whereas a discrete Fourier transform produces the frequency domain information, that is the frequency spectrum. Autocorrelation is defined as the cross-correlation of the signal with itself over varying intervals of time or space.

Signal sampling

Main article: Sampling (signal processing)

With the increasing use of computers the usage and need of digital signal processing has increased. In order to use an analog signal on a computer it must be digitized with an analog to digital converter (ADC). Sampling is usualy carried out in two stages, discretization and quantization. In the discretization stage, the space of signals is partioned into equivalence classes and discretization is carried out by replacing the signal with representative signal of the corresponding equivalence class. In the quantization stage the representative signal values are approximated by values from a finite set.

In order to properly sample an analog signal the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem must be satisfied. In short, the sampling frequency must be greater than twice the bandwidth of the signal (provided it is filtered appropriately). A digital to analog converter (DAC) is used to convert the digital signal back to analog. The use of a digital computer is a key ingredient into digital control systems.

Time and space domains

The most common processing approach in the time or space domain is enhancement of the input signal through a method called filtering. Filtering generally consists of some transformation of a number of surrounding samples around the current sample of the input or output signal. There are various ways to characterize filters; for example:

  • A "linear" filter is a linear transformation of input samples; other filters are "non-linear." Linear filters satisfy the superposition condition, i.e. if an input signal is a weighted linear combination of different input signals, the output is an equally weighted linear combination of the corresponding output signals.
  • A "causal" filter uses only previous samples of the input or output signals; while a "non-causal" filter uses future input samples. A non-causal filter can be changed into a causal filter by adding a delay to it.
  • A "time-invariant" filter has constant properties over time; other filters such as adaptive filters change in time.
  • Some filters are "stable", others are "unstable". A stable filter produces an output that converges to a constant value with time, or remains bounded within a finite interval. An unstable filter produces output which diverges.
  • A "finite impulse response" (FIR) filter uses only the input signal, while an "infinite impulse response" filter (IIR) uses both the input signal and previous samples of the output signal. FIR filters are always stable, while IIR filters may be unstable.

Most filters can be described in Z-domain (a superset of the frequency domain) by their transfer functions. A filter may also be described as a difference equation, a collection of zeroes and poles or, if it is an FIR filter, an impulse response or step response. The output of an FIR filter to any given input may be calculated by convolving the input signal with the impulse response. Filters can also be represented by block diagrams which can then be used to derive a sample processing algorithm to implement the filter using hardware instructions.

Frequency domain

Signals are converted from time or space domain to the frequency domain usually through the Fourier transform. The Fourier transform converts the signal information to a magnitude and phase component of each frequency. Often the Fourier transform is converted to the power spectrum, which is the magnitude of each frequency component squared.

The most common purpose for analysis of signals in the frequency domain is analysis of signal properties. The engineer can study the spectrum to get information of which frequencies are present in the input signal and which are missing.

There are some commonly used frequency domain transformations. For example, the cepstrum converts a signal to the frequency domain through Fourier transform, takes the logarithm, then applies another Fourier transform. This emphasises the frequency components with smaller magnitude while retaining the order of magnitudes of frequency components.

Applications

The main applications of DSP are audio signal processing, audio compression, digital image processing, video compression, speech processing, speech recognition and digital communications. Specific examples are speech compression and transmission in digital mobile phones, equalisation of sound in Hifi equipment, weather forecasting, economic forecasting, seismic data processing, analysis and control of industrial processes, computer-generated animations in movies, medical imaging such as CAT scans and MRI, and image manipulation. A further application is very low frequency (VLF) reception with a PC soundcard [1] (http://www.vlf.it/harald/strangerec.htm).

Techniques


Related fields

References

External links

de:Digitale Signalverarbeitung es:DSP fr:Traitement numérique du signal th:à¸à¸²à¸£à¸›à¸£à¸°à¸¡à¸§à¸¥à¸œà¸¥à¸ªà¸±à¸à¸à¸²à¸“ดิจิทัล pl:DSP ru:Цифровая обработка сигналов zh:数字信号处理

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