Analog and digital signals

Main articles: Analog signal and Digital signal Less formally than the theoretical distinctions mentioned above, two main types of signals encountered in practice are analog and digital. In short, the difference between them is that digital signals are discrete and quantized, as defined below, while analog signals possess neither property.

Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are meaningful. Analog is usually thought of in an electrical context; however, mechanical, pneumatic, hydraulic, and other systems may also convey analog signals. 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. Electrically, the property most commonly used is voltage followed closely by frequency, current, and charge. Any information may be conveyed by an analog signal; often such a signal is a measured response to changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure, and is achieved using a transducer. An analog signal is one where at each point in time the value of the signal is significant, where as a digital signal is one where at each point in time, the value of the signal must be [citation needed] above or below some discrete threshold . For example, in sound recording, fluctuations in air pressure (that is to say, sound) strike the diaphragm of a microphone which induces corresponding fluctuations in the current produced by a coil in an electromagnetic microphone, or the voltage produced by a condensor microphone. The voltage or the current is said to be an "analog" of the sound. An analog signal has a theoretically infinite resolution. In practice an analog signal is subject to noise and a finite slew rate. Therefore, both analog and digital systems are subject to limitations in resolution and bandwidth. As analog systems become more complex, effects such as non-linearity and noise ultimately degrade analog resolution to such an extent that the performance of digital systems may surpass it. Similarly, as digital systems become more complex, errors can occur in the digital data stream. A comparable performing digital system is more complex and requires more bandwidth than its analog [citation needed] counterpart. 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.

Advantages
The main advantage is the fine definition of the analog signal which has the potential for an infinite amount of signal resolution.[1] Compared to digital signals, analog signals are of higher density. [2] Another advantage with analog signals is that their processing may be achieved more simply than with the digital equivalent. An analog signal may be processed directly by analog components, [3] though some processes aren't available except in digital form.

Disadvantages
The primary disadvantage of analog signaling is that any system has noise i.e., random unwanted variation. As the signal is copied and re-copied, or transmitted over long distances, these apparently random variations become dominant. Electrically, these losses can be diminished by shielding, good connections, and several cable types such as coaxial or twisted pair. The effects of noise create signal loss and distortion. This is impossible to recover, since amplifying the signal to recover attenuated parts of the signal amplifies the noise (distortion/interference) as well. Even if the resolution of an analog signal is higher than a comparable digital signal, the difference can be overshadowed by the noise in the signal. Most of the analog systems also suffer from generation loss.

Digital signal
A digital signal is a physical signal that is a representation of a sequence of discrete values (a quantified discrete-time signal), for example of an arbitrary bit stream, or of a digitized (sampled and analog-todigital converted) analog signal. The term digital signal can refer to 1. a continuous-time waveform signal used in any form of digital communication. 2. a pulse train signal that switches between a discrete number of voltage levels or levels of light intensity, also known as a a line coded signal, for example a signal found in digital electronics or in serial communications using digital baseband transmissionin, or a pulse code modulation (PCM) representation of a digitized analog signal. A signal that is generated by means of a digital modulation method (digital passband transmission), produced by a modem, is in the first case considered as a digital signal, and in the second case as converted to an analog signal.

Waveforms in digital systems

A digital signal waveform: (1) low level, (2) high level, (3) rising edge, and (4) falling edge.

Main article: Digital In computer architecture and other digital systems, a waveform that switches between two voltage levels representing the two states of a Boolean value (0 and 1) is referred to as a digital signal, even though it is an analog voltage waveform, since it is interpreted in terms of only two levels. The clock signal is a special digital signal that is used to synchronize digital circuits. The image shown can be considered the waveform of a clock signal. Logic changes are triggered either by the rising edge or the falling edge.

The given diagram is an example of the practical pulse and therefore we have introduced two new terms that are: Rising edge: the transition from a low voltage (level 1 in the diagram) to a high voltage (level 2). Falling edge: the transition from a high voltage to a low one.

Although in a highly simplified and idealised model of a digital circuit we may wish for these transitions to occur instantaneously, no real world circuit is purely resistive and therefore no circuit can instantly change voltage levels. This means that during a short, finite transition time the output may not properly reflect the input, and indeed may not correspond to either a logically high or low voltage.

Examples of signals
Motion. The motion of a particle through some space can be considered to be a signal, or can be represented by a signal. The domain of a motion signal is one-dimensional (time), and the range is generally three-dimensional. Position is thus a 3-vector signal; position and orientation is a 6-vector signal. Sound. Since a sound is a vibration of a medium (such as air), a sound signal associates a pressure value to every value of time and three space coordinates. A microphone converts sound pressure at some place to just a function of time, generating a voltage signal as an analog of the sound signal. Sound signals can be sampled to on a discrete set of time points; for example, compact discs (CDs) contain discrete signals representing sound, recorded at 44,100 samples per second; each sample contains data for a left and right channel, which may be considered to be a 2-vector signal (since CDs are recorded in stereo). Images. A picture or image consists of a brightness or color signal, a function of a twodimensional location. A 2D image can have a continuous spatial domain, as in a traditional photograph or painting; or the image can be discretized in space, as in a raster scanned digital image. Color images are typically represented as a combination of images in three primary colors, so that the signal is vector-valued with dimension three. Videos. A video signal is a sequence of images. A point in a video is identified by its twodimensional position and by the time at which it occurs, so a video signal has a threedimensional domain. Analog video has one continuous domain dimension (across a scan line) and two discrete dimensions (frame and line). Biological membrane potentials. The value of the signal is a straightforward electric potential ("voltage"). The domain is more difficult to establish. Some cells or organelles have the same membrane potential throughout; neurons generally have different potentials at different points. These signals have very low energies, but are enough to make nervous systems work; they can be measured in aggregate by the techniques of electrophysiology.