•Chapter one

 Introduction

 Elements of Digital Signal Processing

 Sampling and Quantization

1. Introduction

1.1. Concepts of Signals, Systems, and Signal Processing

 Signal: - is any physical quantity that varies with time, space, or any other
independent variable or variables. A signal has the ability to convey information in
some pattern of variation.
•Mathematically, a signal is described as a function of one or more independent variables.
Example
 Examples include:

 Electrical signals: currents and voltages in AC circuits, radio communications signals, audio and video
signals.
 Mechanical signals: sound or pressure waves, vibrations in a structure, earthquakes.
 Biomedical signals: electro-encephalogram (provides information about brain activity),
Electrocardiogram (provides information about the operation of patients’ heart), X-ray and other types
of images.
 Finance: time variations of a stock value or a market index.`
 System: - is a physical device that performs an operation on a signal. The operations may take several
forms such as: modification, combination, decomposition, filtering, extraction of parameters, etc.
• For example, a filter that is used to reduce the noise and interference corrupting a desired information-
bearing signal is called a system.
Signal processing is performing certain operation(s) on signal in some fashion (passing a signal through
a system).
System characterization
A system can be represented mathematically as a transformation between two
signal sets, as in.
This is illustrated in Figure 1.1

𝑥[𝑛]
𝑇 {.} 𝑦 [𝑛]

Algorithm- is the method or set of rules for implementing the system by a

program that performs the corresponding mathematical operations
2. Elements of Digital Signal Processing System

2.1 .Analog Signal Processing

Most of the signals encountered in science and engineering are analog in nature.

That is, the signals are functions of continuous variable, such as time or space and usually take on
values in a continuous range.

Such signals may be processed directly by appropriate analog systems such as filters or frequency
analyzers or frequency multipliers for the purpose of changing their characteristics or extracting some
desired information. Such a signal processing is called Analog Signal Processing (ASP) and illustrated
Analog Analog
in fig Analog
Input Signal Output
Signal Processor Signal

Fig Analog Signal Processing

2.2. Digital Signal Processing (DSP)

• Provides an alternative method for processing an analog signal by means of

discrete time operations implemented on a digital hardware as shown in fig
bellow.

•As for the ASP, the input and output signals to the DSP system are analog, but the
processing is done on the equivalent digital signals.

•In its most general form, a DSP system consists of three main components as
illustrated in figure below.
𝑥 𝑑 [ 𝑛]
A/D

𝑦 𝑑 [ 𝑛]
Digital D/A
converter Signal Converter
Analog Processor Analog
Input Signal Output
Signal
 A/D converter: is an interface between the analog signal and the digital processor. It

transforms the analog signal at the system input into a digital signal. A/D conversion can

be viewed as a two-step process:

𝑥𝑎( 𝑡 ) Sampler 𝑥[𝑛] Quantizer
𝑥 𝑑 [ 𝑛]

Sampler: in this the analog input (continuous time) signal is transformed into a
discrete-time signal, as in where is the sampling period.

Quantizer: in which the discrete-time signal is approximated by a digital signal

with only a finite set A of possible levels.

 The number of representation levels in the set A is hardware defined, typically

• Digital Signal Processor: performs the desired operations on the digital signal
and produces a corresponding output signal also in digital form.

• The digital Signal Processor is functionally similar to a microprocessor: it has the

ability to perform mathematical operations on a discrete-time basis and can store
intermediate results of computation in internal memory.

• The operations performed by the digital system can usually be described by means
of an algorithm, on which its implementation is based.

• The implementation of the digital system can take different forms:

• Hardwired: in which dedicated digital hardware components are specially

 D/A Converter: transforms the digital output y_d [n] into an analog signal y_a (t)
suitable for interfacing with the outside world..

𝑦 𝑑 [ 𝑛] Pulse Train ^𝑦 𝑎 ( 𝑡 ) Interpolator

𝑦 𝑎(𝑡 )
Generator

Pulse train generator: in which the digital signal is transformed into a sequence of scaled, analog pulses.

Interpolator: in which the high frequency components of are removed via low-pass filtering to produce a smooth
analog output.
1.3. Sampling and Quantization
• Most signals of practical interest, such as speech, biological signals, seismic signals, radar
signals, sonar signals and various communications signals such as audio and video signals are
analog. To process analog signals by digital means, it is first necessary to convert them into
digital form. That is, to convert them to a sequence of numbers having finite precision. This
procedure is called analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion, and the corresponding devices are called
A/D converters (ADCs).
• Conceptually, we view AD conversion as a three-step process.

𝑥𝑎(𝑡 ) Sampler 𝑥[𝑛] Quantizer

𝑥𝑞 [ 𝑛 ] Coder
𝑥 𝑑 [ 𝑛]

Analog signal Discrete-time signal Quantized signal Digital signal

• Sampling. This is the conversion of a continuous-time signal into a discrete-time
signal obtained by taking "samples" of the continuous-time signal at discrete-time
instants. Thus, if is the input to the sampler, the output is , where T is called the
sampling interval.

• Quantization. This is the conversion of a discrete-time continuous-valued signal into

a discrete-time, discrete-valued (digital) signal. The value of each signal sample is
represented by a value selected from a finite set of possible values. The difference
between the unquantized sample and the quantized output is called the quantization
error.

• Coding. In the coding process, each discrete value is represented by a b-bit binary
• The sampling of Analog Signals
• Does sampling result in loss of information? Or does it introduce signal distortion when
reconstructing an analog signal from its samples?
• In this Section we will try to answer these questions by introducing the sampling theorem.
• There are many ways to sample an analog signal. We limit our discussion to periodic or uniform
sampling which is the type of sampling used most often in practice. This is described by the
relation
• x(n)=x_a (nT), -∞<n<∞
• where x(n) is the discrete-time signal obtained by "taking samples" of the analog signal x(t)
every T seconds.
• For periodic sampling, the relationship between the time variables and is linear and
described as:

• Consider an analog sinusoidal signal described below

• Sampling this signal at a rate of samples per second results in

• Where

• Now consider the properties of CT sinusoidal signals and DT sinusoidal signals:

• An analog sinusoidal signal is characterized by the following properties
• A1: For every fixed value of is periodic. That is
• B1: A DT sinusoid is periodic only if its frequency is a rational number. That is,

• is periodic with period , if and only if

• Thus for a sinusoidal with frequency to be periodic, we should have:

• This relation is true if and only if there exists an integer such that, and this requires which is the
ratio of two integers (i.e. rational number)

• B2: A DT sinusoidal whose frequencies are separated by an integer multiple of are identical.

• Example 1.1: consider the following two analog sinusoidal signals and defined as:
• Sampling theorem: If the highest frequency contained in an analog signal is and the signal is

sampled at a rate then can be exactly recovered from its sample values using the interpolation

function

•Thus may be expressed as,

• where are the samples of
•The minimum sampling rate: is called the Nyquist rate.
•Example 1.2: Consider the analog signal
a) Determine the minimum sampling rate required to avoid aliasing
b) Suppose that the signal is sampled at the rate, what is the discrete-time signal obtained after
sampling?
c) Suppose that the signal is sampled at the rate, what is the discrcte-time signal obtained after
sampling?
•Example 1.3: Consider the analog signal

What is the Nyquist rate for this signal?