Digital filters are a fundamental combination of digital signal processing. But before we talk about why digital signals are important, it’s essential to understand what caused designers to switch from the analog signal processing to digital signal processing.
Since analog signal processing deals with continuous time signals, it’s prone to producing noise, which can alter the signal’s amplitude and its frequency component. In order to minimize the noise effect, designers began using digital signal processing since it’s less susceptible to noise. And while the use of digital signals minimized these effects, it didn’t completely eliminate them, which affected signal integrity. This led designers to adopt the use of digital filters!
All There’s to Know about Digital Filters
A digital filter serves the purpose of signal separation and restoration. As the name suggests, the signal separation technique is used when the signal is contaminated with noise and random frequency components. Signal restoration, on the other hand, restores the original signal if it’s distorted by noise in any way.
Let’s consider the following examples to better understand the working of these two techniques.
v Signal Separation
Consider the example of EKG that’s used to monitor the heartbeat of an unborn baby in the womb. The baby’s heartbeat is a raw signal, which may be corrupted by the mother’s breathing and heartbeat, by the time it reaches the analyzer. This is where signal separation comes in.
A digital filter separates the original signal with this technique so that the signal can be analyzed properly and correctly.
v Signal Restoration
Consider the example of an audio recording with a poor recorder. The recorded signal won’t only contain the original noise, but several other noise components that’ll alter the original recording. With the signal restoration technique, you can retrieve the original signal by separating it from the unwanted signal components.
Why Use Digital Filters?
Now that you know about the different signal disturbances that can occur, does it have you thinking: why not use analog filters since they’re much cheaper than digital filters?
Although analog filters are a relatively economical choice, digital filters surpass them in terms of efficiency. With their design flexibility, digital filters can be used in combination with multiple input signals, without changing their design. All you need to do is change their programming, and they’re all set to work with any of your digital circuits. In addition to that, their performance efficiency is independent of environmental parameters; i.e. their output doesn’t change with variations in temperature.
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ADSANTEC provides top-notch electronic components that are designed to operate at high frequencies. Our range of products includes digital filters, delay lines, 4-bit ADC, clock dividers, and numerous other electronic components.
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