
Chapter 2
Sampling and Reconstruction
2.1 Theory
W
HENEVER we wish to obtain a real world signal in order to process it digitally, we
must first convert it from its natural analog form to the more easily manipulated
digital form.
1
This involves grabbing, or “sampling,” the signal at certain instants in time.
We assume the sampling instants are equally spaced in time (T
s
), so that the sampling
frequency (F
s
) is equal to 1/T
s
. Each individual sample represents the amplitude of the
signal at that instant in time, and the number of bits persamplethatweusetostorethis
amplitude determines how accurately we can represent it. More bits means better fidelity,
but ...