Analog-to-Digital Conversion

Because of the way computers are organized, signal must be represented by a finite number of bytes. This restriction means that both the time axis and the amplitude axis must be quantized: They must each be a multiple of the integers. 1 Quite surprisingly, the Sampling Theorem allows us to quantize the time axis without error for some signals. The signals that can be sampled without introducing error are interesting, and as described in the next section, we can make a signal "samplable" by filtering. In contrast, no one has found a way of performing the amplitude quantization step without introducing an unrecoverable error. Thus, a signal's value can no longer be any real number. Signals processed by digital computers must be discrete-valued: their values must be proportional to the integers. Consequently, analog-to-digital conversion introduces error.

The Sampling Theorem

Digital transmission of information and digital signal processing all require signals to first be "acquired" by a computer. One of the most amazing and useful results in electrical engineering is that signals can be converted from a function of time into a sequence of numbers without error: We can convert the numbers back into the signal with (theoretically) no error. Harold Nyquist, a Bell Laboratories engineer, first derived this result, known as the Sampling Theorem, in the 1920s. It found no real application back then. Claude Shannon, also at Bell Laboratories, revived the result once computers were made public after World War II.

The sampled version of the analog signal st s t is sn T s s n T s , with T s T s known as the sampling interval. Clearly, the value of the original signal at the sampling times is preserved; the issue is how the signal values between the samples can be reconstructed since they are lost in the sampling process. To characterize sampling, we approximate it as the product xt=st P T s t x t s t P T s t , with P T s t P T s t being the periodic pulse signal. The resulting signal, as shown in Figure 1, has nonzero values only during the time intervals n T s −Δ2n T s +Δ2 n T s Δ 2 n T s Δ 2 , n∈…-101… n … -1 0 1 … .

Figure 1: The waveform of an example signal is shown in the top plot and its sampled version in the bottom.

Sampled Signal

To understand how signal values between the samples can be "filled" in, we need to calculate the sampled signal's spectrum. Using the Fourier series representation of the periodic sampling signal,

Figure 2: The spectrum of some bandlimited (to W W Hz) signal is shown in the top plot. If the sampling interval T s T s is chosen too large relative to the bandwidth W W, aliasing will occur. In the bottom plot, the sampling interval is chosen sufficiently small to avoid aliasing. Note that if the signal were not bandlimited, the component spectra would always overlap.

aliasing

The frequency 12 T s 1 2 T s , known today as the Nyquist frequency and the Shannon sampling frequency, corresponds to the highest frequency at which a signal can contain energy and remain compatible with the Sampling Theorem. High-quality sampling systems ensure that no aliasing occurs by unceremoniously lowpass filtering the signal (cutoff frequency being slightly lower than the Nyquist frequency) before sampling. Such systems therefore vary the anti-aliasing filter's cutoff frequency as the sampling rate varies. Because such quality features cost money, many sound cards do not have anti-aliasing filters or, for that matter, post-sampling filters. They sample at high frequencies, 44.1 kHz for example, and hope the signal contains no frequencies above the Nyquist frequency (22.05 kHz in our example). If, however, the signal contains frequencies beyond the sound card's Nyquist frequency, the resulting aliasing can be impossible to remove.

Exercise 2

To gain a better appreciation of aliasing, sketch the spectrum of a sampled square wave. For simplicity consider only the spectral repetitions centered at -1 T s 1 T s , 0 0, 1 T s 1 T s . Let the sampling interval T s T s be 1; consider two values for the square wave's period: 3.5 and 4. Note in particular where the spectral lines go as the period decreases; some will move to the left and some to the right. What property characterizes the ones going the same direction?

Solution

Figure 3

The square wave's spectrum is shown by the bolder set of lines centered about the origin. The dashed lines correspond to the frequencies about which the spectral repetitions (due to sampling with T s =1 T s 1 ) occur. As the square wave's period decreases, the negative frequency lines move to the left and the positive frequency ones to the right.

[ Show Solution ] [ Hide Solution ]

If we satisfy the Sampling Theorem's conditions, the signal will change only slightly during each pulse. As we narrow the pulse, making Δ Δ smaller and smaller, the nonzero values of the signal st p T s t s t p T s t will simply be sn T s s n T s , the signal's samples. If indeed the Nyquist frequency equals the signal's highest frequency, at least two samples will occur within the period of the signal's highest frequency sinusoid. In these ways, the sampling signal captures the sampled signal's temporal variations in a way that leaves all the original signal's structure intact.