Digital Signal Processing

Subject classification: this is an engineering resource .

Introduction

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) is the study of digital representation of signals. This is a technique to analyze and process real time signals (or analog signals). Analog signals are those, which are represented for all values of time. Digital Signals are obtained from analog signals by a process called Sampling, which involves extracting sample values of the analog signals at regular intervals of time. This process is called Analog-to-Digital Conversion and the system performing this activity is called the Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC).

DSP involves the application of Mathematical operations to the signals, to analyze, modify or extract information from them. Some reasons for the application of DSP may include -

[a] Removal of interference from the signal

[b] To obtain the spectrum of the signal

[c] To transform the signal into a more suitable form

Advantages of DSP

The following are a few of the advantages of Digital Signal Processing:

[a] Programmability: a digital system can be programmably changed to change the functionality

[b] Versatility - Ease of upgrading and Flexibility

[c] Stability (Tolerance)

[d] Cost effectiveness

[e] Special applications like lossless comprison

[f] DSP based systems can be easily modified

Limitations of DSP

The following are a few of the limitations of Digital Signal Processing:

[a] Processing of signals involves more power consumption

[b] Processing of signals beyond higher frequencies (beyond GHz) and below lower frequencies (a few Hz) involves limitations

[c] Information is lost because we only take samples of the signal at intervals .