Chapter 2 - The General Model of a DSP System

Abstract

This chapter looks at the key blocks in a digital–signal-processing (DSP) system. Any DSP system will be composed of some subset of these blocks. The key to understanding, specifying, or designing a DSP system is to know how these blocks are related and how the parameters of any one block impact the parameters of the other blocks. The overall idea behind DSP is to acquire the signal, convert it to a sequence of digital numbers, process the numbers as required, transmit or save the data as may be required, and finally, convert the processed sequence of numbers back to a signal. This process may be considerably more complicated than the traditional analog signal processors (radios, telephones, TVs, stereos, etc.) However, given the advances in modern technology, DSP solutions can be both cheaper and far more efficient than traditional techniques. The ability to store and transmit data in digital form is one of the key benefits of DSP operations. An analog signal, no matter how it is stored, will immediately begin to degrade. However, a digital signal is much more robust as it is composed of ones and zeroes. Furthermore, a digital signal can be protected with error detection and correction codes. The chapter also reflects on signal-conditioning circuit, antialiasing filter, and analog-to-digital converter (ADC).