Analog signal - article

This article written by Ashley Baldwin

An analog signal or analogue signal is any continuous signal representing some other quantity,
i.e., analogous to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous
signal voltage varies continuously with the pressure of the sound waves.
In contrast, a digital signal represents the original time-varying quantity as a sampled sequence
of quantized values which imposes some bandwidth and dynamic range constraints on the
representation.
The term analog signal usually refers to electrical signals; however, mechanical, pneumatic,
hydraulic, and other systems may also convey or be considered analog signals.
Representation
An analog signal uses some property of the medium to convey the signal's information. For
example, an aneroid barometer uses rotary position as the signal to convey pressure
information. In an electrical signal, the voltage, current, or frequency of the signal may be varied
to represent the information.
Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; such a signal may be a measured
response to changes in a physical variable, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or
pressure. The physical variable is converted to an analog signal by a transducer. For example,
sound striking the diaphragm of a microphone induces corresponding fluctuations in the current
produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone or the voltage produced by a condenser
microphone. The voltage or the current is said to be an analog of the sound.
Noise
An analog signal is subject to electronic noise and distortion introduced by communication
channels, recording and signal processing operations, which can progressively degrade the
signal-to-noise ratio. As the signal is transmitted, copied, or processed, the unavoidable noise
introduced in the signal path will accumulate as a generation loss, progressively and irreversibly
degrading the SNR, until in extreme cases, the signal can be overwhelmed. Noise can show up as
hiss and intermodulation distortion in audio signals, or snow in video signals. Generation loss is
irreversible as there is no reliable method to distinguish the noise from the signal.
In contrast, although converting an analog signal to digital form introduces a low-level
quantization noise into the signal due to finite resolution of digital systems, once in digital form,
the signal can be transmitted, stored, or processed without introducing significant additional
noise or distortion.
Noise accumulation in analog systems can be minimized by electromagnetic shielding, balanced
lines, low-noise amplifiers and high-quality electrical components.
In analog systems, it is difficult to detect when such degradation occurs. However, in digital
systems, degradation can not only be detected but corrected as well.
See also
Amplifier
Analog computer
Analog device
Analog signal processing
Magnetic tape
Preamplifier
References