Hello, everybody. We all have at least heard the terms analog, digital and discrete. In today's era of modern technologies, we, knowingly or unknowingly, use accessories whose functioning blocks are based on above-mentioned terms. So, it's quite important for us to know the meaning of those terms and also the significance they carry.
Analog Signal
Analog signals are the signals which are continuous throughout the time axis and can have any value of amplitude. Thus, an analog signal is continuous in both time and amplitude which means it has a value at every timestamp and the amplitude can be anything. For reference, look at the image below. Forgive me for my bad drawing but I think it will be enough to understand.
In this image as we can see, the signal has value at every timestamp. If the time axis is measured in seconds, we can get the value of the signal at 3.6575528 seconds also because the signal is continuous in time. Also, there is no curbing in amplitude. Amplitude can take any possible value.
Discrete Signal
Discrete signals are the signals that have value at fixed timestamps but can have any value of amplitude. The discrete form of the signal of the first figure will look somewhat like this:
As we can see that we have the value of the signal at predefined timestamp but still the amplitude can take any value.
Digital Signal
A signal that is discrete in time and discrete in amplitude is called digital signal. Thus, a digital signal has value at predefined timestamp and also there is a definite range of amplitude such that the amplitude varies within that range in a discrete fashion.
Here the value of the signal is present only at specific timestamp and the amplitude is also restricted. The amplitudes are represented to the best level. As you can see the highest amplitude component is represented by the highest level. The representation of amplitude to the best level is known as quantization. In quantization, the amplitude is represented in levels. The higher the amplitude, the higher levels are needed to represent them. If a signal has an amplitude of 4.5 Volts at a particular timestamp and if the levels in digital are divided as 1V, 3V, 5V etc... then, the amplitude will settle at 5V in the digital representation because 5V is the nearest level for 4.5V.
So, this is the basic explanation of what analog, discrete and digital signals are. I will further write on their applications and uses in modern technologies in the next article.
Have a good day!!
Analog Signal
Analog signals are the signals which are continuous throughout the time axis and can have any value of amplitude. Thus, an analog signal is continuous in both time and amplitude which means it has a value at every timestamp and the amplitude can be anything. For reference, look at the image below. Forgive me for my bad drawing but I think it will be enough to understand.
Discrete Signal
Discrete signals are the signals that have value at fixed timestamps but can have any value of amplitude. The discrete form of the signal of the first figure will look somewhat like this:
Digital Signal
A signal that is discrete in time and discrete in amplitude is called digital signal. Thus, a digital signal has value at predefined timestamp and also there is a definite range of amplitude such that the amplitude varies within that range in a discrete fashion.
So, this is the basic explanation of what analog, discrete and digital signals are. I will further write on their applications and uses in modern technologies in the next article.
Have a good day!!
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